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"Sorry. That junk, as you call it, may come in handy."
"But we're losing lift."
"Do the best you can."
Jessie pointed through the windshield. "The island off to our starboard is Cayo Santa Maria. The landmass beyond is Cuba. I'm going to bring the blimp around on a southerly course and take our chances with the Cubans."
Pitt swung from the window, his green eyes set and purposeful. "You volunteered for this mission," he said roughly. "You wanted to be one of the boys. Now hang in there."
"Use your head, Pitt," she snapped. "If we wait another half hour the hurricane will tear us to pieces."
"I think I have something," Giordino called.
Pitt moved from his seat over to the port side. "What direction?"
Giordino pointed. "We just passed over it. About two hundred yards off our stern."
"A big one," Gunn said excitedly. "The markings are going off the scale."
"Come about to port," Pitt ordered Jessie. "Take us back over the same course.
Jessie didn't argue. Suddenly caught up in the fervor of the discovery, she felt her exhaustion fall away.
She slammed the throttles forward and rolled the blimp to port, using the wind to crab around on a reverse course. A gust slammed into the aluminum envelope, causing a shudder to run through the ship and rocking the control car. Then the buffeting eased and the flight smoothed as the eight tail fins came around and the wind beat from astern.
The interior of the control car was as hushed as the crypt of a cathedral. Gunn unreeled the line from the gradiometer's sensing unit until it dangled four hundred feet below the belly of the blimp and skimmed the rolling swells. Then he turned his attention back to the recorder and waited for the stylus to make a horizontal swing across the graph paper. Soon it began to waver and scratch back and forth.
"Coming up on target," Gunn announced.
Giordino and Pitt ignored the wind stream and leaned farther out the windows. The sea was building and foam was spraying from the wave crests, making it difficult to see into the transparent depths. Jessie was having a tougher time of it now, struggling with the controls, trying to reduce the violent shaking and swaying of the blimp, which behaved like a whale fighting its way up the Colorado River rapids.
"I've got her!" Pitt suddenly shouted. "She's lying north and south, about a hundred yards to starboard."
Giordino moved to the opposite side of the control car and gazed down. "Okay, I have her in sight too."
"Can you detect any sign of derricks?" Gunn asked.
"Her outline is distinct, but I can't make out any detail. I'd say she's about eighty feet under the surface."
"More like ninety," said Pitt.
"Is it the Cyclops?" Jessie asked anxiously.
"Too early to tell." He turned to Gunn. "Mark the position from the VIKOR."
"Position marked," Gunn acknowledged.
Pitt nodded at Jessie. "All right, pilot, let's make another pass. And this time, as we come about into the wind, try to hover over the target."
"Why don't you ask me to turn lead into gold," she snapped back.
Pitt came over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "You're doing great. Stick in a little longer and I'll spell you at the controls."
"Don't patronize me," she said testily, but her eyes took on a warm glow and the tension lines around her lips softened. "Just tell me when to stop the bus."
Very self-willed she was, thought Pitt. For the first time he felt himself envying Raymond LeBaron. He returned aft and put a hand on Gunn's shoulder.
"Use the clinometer and see if you can get a rough measurement of her dimensions."
