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"Commander Milligan is on board the Ocean Venturer. She recognized him from the monitors. The CIA tracked down his true identity in their files."
"She knew Shaw?" the President asked incredulously.
Moon nodded. "Met him at a party in Los Angeles a month ago."
"I thought she was shipped out to sea."
"A foul-up. It never occurred to anyone to check out the fact that her ship was ordered to lay over three days in Long Beach for modifications. Also, nothing was said about not allowing her on shore."
"Their meeting? Could it have been a setup?"
"Seems so. The FBI spotted Shaw when he arrived from Britain. A usual procedure when embassy staff members greet overseas visitors. Shaw was escorted to a plane bound for LA. There the party was thrown by Graham Humberly, a well known jet setter on the payroll of British intelligence."
"So Commander Milligan spilled her knowledge of the treaty.
Moon shrugged. "She had no instructions to keep her mouth shut."
"But how did they get wind of our knowledge of the treaty in the first place?"
"We don't know," Moon admitted.
The President read through the report on Shaw. "Odd that the British would trust an assignment of such magnitude to a man crowding seventy."
"At first glance it seems MI6 has given our treaty search low priority. But when you think about it, Shaw might well be the perfect choice to operate undercover. If Commander Milligan hadn't recognized his face, I doubt if we'd have tied him to British intelligence."
"Times have changed since Shaw was on the active list. He may be out of his element on this one."
"I wouldn't bet on it," Moon said. "The guy is no slouch. He's pegged us every step of the way."
The President sat very still for a moment. "It would appear that our neatly hatched concept has been penetrated."
"Yes, sir," Moon nodded somberly. "It's only a question of days, maybe hours, before the Ocean Venturer is ordered off the St. Lawrence. The stakes are too high for the British to gamble on us not finding the treaty."
"Then we write off the Empress of Ireland as a lost cause.
"Unless . . ." Moon said as if thinking out loud. "Unless Dirk Pitt can find the treaty in what precious time he has left."
Pitt scanned the screens, which showed the salvage team going about their business on the hulk below.
Like two moon creatures cavorting in slow motion, the JIM suits and their human occupants carefully placed the Pyroxpne on the upper superstructure. The men worked comfortably under the surface equal atmosphere within their articulated enclosures. While outside, the bodies of the scuba divers were squeezed by seventy-five pounds of pressure per square inch. Pitt turned to Doug Hoker, who was fine-tuning a monitor.
"Where's the submersible?"
Hoker turned and studied a chart unreeling from a sonar recorder. "The Sappho I is cruising twenty meters off the port bow of the Empress. Until we're ready to begin removing debris, I've ordered its crew to patrol a quarter-mile perimeter around the wreck."
"Good thinking," said Pitt. "Any sign of trespassers?"
"Negative."
"At least we'll be ready for them this time."
Hoker made a dubious gesture. "I can't give you a perfect detection system. Visibility is too lousy for the cameras to see very far."
"What about side-scan sonar?"
"Its transducers cover a three-hundred-sixty-degree spread for three hundred meters, but again, no guarantees. A man makes an awfully small target."
"Any surface ships prowling about?"
