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Pitt stood for several moments, listening to the water slapping against the wharf pilings. Not a soul could be seen. The wharf looked deserted. Almost, but not quite.
He dropped down to his cabin in the stern, removed a small black case from his suitcase and eased back up the stairway onto the side of the deck opposite the wharf. Using the deckhouse as a cover, he opened the case and removed what looked like a video camera. He switched on its transformer and it gave off a muted high-pitched whine. Next, he draped a blanket over his head and slowly rose until his eyes could peer over a pile of rope coiled on the deckhouse roof. He pressed his face against the eyepiece of the night-vision monocular as the scope automatically adjusted the amplification, brightness control and infrared illuminator. Then he peered into the darkness across the wharf that was now illuminated in a greenish image that gave him the night vision of an owl.
The Chevrolet pickup truck he'd noticed when arriving at the Poco Bonito was still sitting in the dark. The ambient light from the stars and two dim lights a hundred yards down the wharf were now enhanced twenty thousand times, revealing the driver of the truck as if he were in a well-lit room. But as Pitt studied the driver, he saw that he was a she. Pitt could tell by the way the observer swept her scope back and forth across the lit portholes of the hull that she did not suspect that she had been detected. He could even tell that her hair was wet.
Pitt lowered the scope slightly until it was focused on the pickup truck's driver's door. The snoop was no professional, Pitt thought. Nor was she cautious. Probably a construction worker doing double duty as a spy, since the name of her employer was painted on the side of the door in gold letters:
ODYSSEY
The name stood alone, no "Limited," no "Corporation," no "Company," after it.
Below the name was the stylized image of a horse running with its legs outstretched. It looked vaguely familiar to Pitt, but he couldn't recall where he'd seen it.
Why was Odyssey interested in a NUMA research expedition?
Pitt wondered. What possible threat was a team of ocean scientists? He saw no sense to the stakeout by a giant organization with nothing to gain.
He could not refrain from standing up and walking to the wharf side of the boat and waving to the woman in the pickup, who immediately trained her nightscope on him. Pitt held up his scope to his eyes and stared back. Definitely not a professional snoop, the woman became so shaken that she dropped her scope on the seat, hurriedly kicked over the engine and roared across the wharf into the darkness, spinning her rear tires in a screech of protest.
Renee looked up in unison with Giordino and Dodge. "What was that all about?" asked Renee.
"Someone in a hurry," Pitt said in amusement.
Renee cast off the bow and stern lines while the men looked on. With Gunn manning the pilothouse, the powerful engines sputtered and rumbled into life with a mellow hum, as they gently shivered the deck. Then Poco Bonito slipped away from the wharf and churned into the channel that ran through the Straits of Bluffs to the sea. The course, programed into the computerized navigation equipment, set the bow on a heading toward the northeast. But Gunn--like most airline pilots, who would rather take off and land a commercial airliner than allow a computer to do it--took the wheel and steered the vessel seaward.
Pitt descended a ladder to his cabin, replaced the nightscope in his bag and retrieved a Globalstar tri-mode satellite phone. Then he returned to the deck and relaxed in a tattered lounge chair. He turned and smiled as Renee extended her hand through a porthole of the galley with a cup in her hand.
"Coffee?" she inquired from inside the galley.
"You're an angel," said Pitt. "Thank you."
He sipped at the coffee and then punched a number on the satellite phone. Sandecker answered on the fourth ring. "Sandecker," the admiral snapped briskly.
"Did you forget to tell me something, Admiral?"
"You're not clear."
"Odyssey."
There was a silence. Then, "Why do you ask?"
"One of their people was spying on us as we boarded the boat. I'm interested in knowing why."
"Better you learn later," Sandecker said cryptically.
"Has this to do with Odyssey's excavation project in Nicaragua?" Pitt asked innocently.
Another silence and an echo. "Why do you ask?"
"Just curious."
"Where did you obtain your information?"
Pitt couldn't resist. "Better you learn later."
Then he closed the connection.
