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"Well, in can be found most anywhere. Life jackets, lifeboats, on the bow and stern the name is often bead welded, outlining the painted letters. Then you have the builder's plates, one on the exterior of the superstructure, one in the engine room. And, oh, yeah, the ship's official number is burned into a beam around the outer base of the hatch covers."
"I'll wager a month's pay that if you could dig the ship from under the mountain you'd find the hatch number burned off and the builder's plate gone."
"That leaves one in the engine room."
"Missing too. I checked, along with all the manufacturer's markings."
"Sounds devious," said Dover quietly.
"You're damn right," Pitt replied abruptly. "There's more to the Pilottown than a marine insurance rip-off."
"I'm in no mood to solve mysteries now," Dover said, rising awkwardly to his feet. "I'm freezing, starved and tired as hell. I vote we head back."
Pitt looked and saw Dover was still clutching the canister of explosives. "Bringing that along?"
"evidence."
"Don't drop it," Pitt said with a sarcastic edge in his voice.
They climbed from the engine room and hurried through the ship's storerooms, anxious to escape the damp blackness and reach daylight again. Suddenly Pitt stopped in his tracks. Dover, walking head down, bumped into him.
"Why'd you stop?"
"You feel it?"
Before Dover could answer, the deck beneath their feet trembled and the bulkheads creaked ominously. What sounded like the muffled roar of a distant explosion rumbled closer and closer, quickly followed by a tremendous shock wave. The Pilottown shuddered under the impact and her welded seams screeched as they split under enormous pressure.
The shock flung the two men violently against the steel bulkheads.
Pitt managed to remain on his feet, but Dover, unbalanced by his heavy burden, crashed like a tree to the deck, embracing the canister with his arms and cushioning its fall with his body. A grunt of pain passed his lips as he dislocated his shoulder and wrenched a knee. He dazedly struggled to a sitting position and looked up at Pitt.
"What in God's name was that?" he gasped.
"Augustine Volcano," Pitt said, almost clinically. "It must have erupted."
"Jesus, what next?"
Pitt helped the big man to his feet. He could feel Dover's arm tense through the heavy suit. "You hurt?"
"A little bent, but I don't think anything's broken."
"Can you make a run for it?"
"I'm all right," Dover lied through clenched teeth. "What about the evidence?"
"Forget it," Pitt said urgently. "Let's get the hell out of here."
Without another word they took off through the storerooms and into the narrow alleyway between the freshwater tanks. Pitt slung his arm around Dover's waist and half dragged, half carried him through the darkness.
Pitt thought the alleyway would never end. His breath began to come in gasps and his heart pounded against his ribs. He struggled to stay on his feet as the old Pilottown shook and swayed from the earth's tremors. They reached cargo hold number four and scrambled down the ladder. He lost his grip and Dover fell to the deck.
The precious seconds lost manhandling Dover over to the opposite ladder seemed like years.
Pitt had barely set foot on the scaly rungs when there was a crack like thunder and something fell past him and struck the deck.
He threw the light beam up. At that instant the hatch cover disintegrated and tons of rock and debris cascaded into the hold.
"Climb, damn it, climb!" He yelled at Dover. His chest heaved and the blood roared in his ears. With an inner strength he thrust Dover's 220 pounds up the ladder.
