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"Tell them to push hard," Pitt said gravely. "If that storm strikes before they get here, they may not find anyone left to rescue."
5
The interior of the Emerald Dolphin was disintegrating, bulkhead toppling against bulkhead, deck falling on deck. In less than two hours after it had burst into flames, the ship's grand interior had been consumed. The entire superstructure was collapsing into a fiery hellpit. The ornate decor, the elegant shopping avenue with its stylish shops, the seventy-eight-million-dollar art collection, the lavish casino, dining rooms and lounges, the luxurious staterooms and opulent entertainment and sporting facilities, all had been reduced to smoldering ashes.
Everyone crowded on the open decks of the Deep Encounter, former passengers and crew, the men and women working feverishly on the NUMA survey ship, all stopped whatever they were doing and gazed at the holocaust with a mixture of grief and fascination as Captain Burch steered around the stern of the gigantic ship toward the bow.
No longer a ball of raging flame, she was melting down into a dying furnace. The frenzied fire having attacked and consumed every flammable material, every combustible object, now found nothing left to destroy. The fiberglass-hull lifeboats hung grotesquely and contorted, having melted into unrecognizable shapes. The great circular decks were drooping down around the hull like the decayed wings of a dead vulture. The high observation lounge and most of the bridge had fallen inward and all but disappeared, as if swallowed in an immense chasm. Much of the glass that had melted was cooling and rehardening into unnatural configurations.
Consumed by the holocaust, the entire circular superstructure caved in upon itself under a great billowing pall of smoke. Fresh flames suddenly leaped through the open sides of the hull from explosions deep below. The Emerald Dolphin shuddered like a great tortured beast. Yet she refused to die and slip beneath the waves. She drifted doggedly on a sea that was turning gray and nastier by the minute. Soon she would be little more than a gutted hulk. Never again would she hear the footsteps, conversation and laughter of cheerful and excited passengers. Never would she majestically sail into exotic ports throughout the world as proud a ship as ever sailed the seas. If she remained afloat after the fires cooled, and her hull plates did not buckle from the intense heat, she would be towed to her final harbor and to a shipyard, where she would be cut down into scrap.
Pitt stared at her with deep sadness, watching a fabulous ship reduced to a ruin. He could feel the heat of the flames reach across the water and touch him. He wondered why such beautiful vessels had to die, why some sailed the oceans for thirty years without incident before heading for the scrappers, while others, like the Titanic on her maiden voyage or the Emerald Dolphin on hers, came to early grief. There were lucky ships and there were those that sailed into oblivion.
He stood hunched over the rail, lost in his thoughts, when McFerrin came and stood next to him. The cruise ship's second officer remained strangely silent as the Deep Encounter moved slowly past the macabre drama. The rescue boats with their overloaded cargo of survivors followed in the wake.
"How are your hands?" asked Pitt solicitously.
McFerrin held them up and displayed bandages that looked like white mittens. His face, with burned and reddened skin, was smeared with antiseptic lotion and looked like an unsightly Halloween mask. "Not easy going to the bathroom, let me tell you."
Pitt smiled. "I can imagine."
McFerrin, on the verge of tearful rage, gazed entranced at the ghastly sepulcher. "It should never have happened," he said, his voice quavering with emotion.
"What do you think caused it?"
McFerrin turned from the glowing, twisted hulk. His face strained in anger. "It was not an act of God. I can tell you that."
"You think it was terrorism?" Pitt asked incredulously.
"There is no doubt in my mind. The fire spread too quickly for it to have been accidental. None of the automated fire-warning or fire-control systems went into operation. And when they were manually engaged, they refused to function."
"What mystifies me is why your captain failed to send off a distress signal. We turned toward you only after we saw the glow of your fire on the horizon. Our radio inquiries regarding your situation went unanswered."
"First Officer Sheffield!" McFerrin fairly spat out the name. "He was incapable of command decisions. When I found that no message had been sent, I immediately contacted the radio room, but it was too late. The fire had already reached it and the operators had fled."
Pitt gestured up at the high-angled bow of the cruise ship. "I see life up there."
A large group of human figures could be seen waving excitedly on the forepeak of the ship. Unlike those who had run for the stern, fifty or more passengers and large numbers of the crew had made their way to the open forepeak above the bow. Fortunately for them, the bow was a good two hundred feet away from the forward bulkheads of the superstructure and upwind from the fire and acrid smoke that had streaked toward the stern.
McFerrin straightened, held a hand over his eyes to shield them from the rising sun and peered up at the tiny figures wildly gesturing above the bow. "Mostly crew, with a sprinkling of passengers. Actually, they look like they might be okay for a little while. The fire's going the other way."
Pitt took a pair of binoculars and scanned the waters around the bow. "None appear to have jumped. I see no sign of floating bodies or swimmers."
"So long as they're safe from the fire for the moment," said Burch, approaching from inside the pilothouse, "it's better we leave them until another ship arrives or the weather settles down."
"It's obvious we can't stay afloat in rough seas with another four hundred people on board," Pitt agreed. "We're just a hair away from capsizing and sinking as it is."
The wind was beginning to fling itself at them, rising from ten miles an hour to thirty. The sea was tossing whitecapped foam in the breeze, and the swells came marching in like an irresistible force, now rising nearly ten feet high. It was only a warning of the fury that was yet to come.
Pitt rushed off the bridge and shouted for the crew and scientists to get as many people as possible off the work deck and to secure those who were left before the waves smashed over the sides and swept them away. The crush on the lower decks was quickly becoming unbearable, but there was no alternative. To leave hundreds of people exposed to the elements during a tempest would be signing their death warrants.
Pitt studied the crews of the two boats trailing in the wake. He was gravely concerned about their situation. The sea was too chaotic for them to come alongside and unload their passengers. Pitt looked at Burch. "I suggest, Skipper, that we turn and come around on the lee side of the cruise ship and use her for a shelter from the storm's battering. If we can't get the boat crews and the survivors on board, we've got to move them to calmer wa
ter in the next few minutes or it will be too late for them."
Burch nodded. "A sound recommendation. It may be our only salvation as well."
"Can't you bring them on board?" asked McFerrin.
