Free Dirk Pitt 1 - Pacific Vortex by Clive Cussler Page B

door now. Not much time. I do not understand. The ship is moving again. Help! For God's sake, help us! Oh, sweet Jesus. They're...” The final message ended here.
    The first ship on the scene was the Spanish freighter, the San Gabriel. It was only twelve miles away when it picked up the Lillie Marlene's Mayday signal. It was, in fact, the ship the radio operator sighted before he fell silent As the Spanish steamer pulled alongside, her crew noted that the yacht seemed to be in an undamaged condition and was underway at a slow speed, leaving a narrow wake behind her stern. Suddenly, and unexplicably, the Lillie Marlene stopped dead in the water, enabling the captain of the San Gabriel to send out a boarding party. They found a dead ship with a dead crew. The lifeless bodies of the passengers, the film technicians, the ship's officers, and crew, were lying in scattered heaps about the decks and in the cabins below. In the radio room the corpse of the operator lay slumped over the transmitter, the red ON light still blinking on the panel.
    The officer leading the boarding crew immediately radioed the captain of the San Gabriel. There was terror in his voice as he described what they had found. The victims' bodies had turned green and their faces had been melted away, as if burned by a tremendous heat. A stench pervaded the ship, described as sulfurous in nature. The position of the bodies seemed to indicate that there had been a terrific struggle before they had died. Arms and legs were twisted in unnatural contortions, and the hideously burned faces all seemed to be facing north. Even a small dog, obviously one of the passenger's, bore the same strange injuries.
    After a short conference in the wheelhouse, the boarding party signaled the captain of the San Gabriel for a towing rope. It was their intent to claim the Lillie Marlene as salvage and tow the yacht and her morbid cargo to Honolulu.
    Then suddenly, before the San Gabriel could come into position, a massive explosion ripped the Lillie Marlene from bow to stern. The force from the blast rocked the San Gabriel and hurled debris over a quarter of a mile.
    Horror-struck, the crew and captain of the San Gabriel stood by helplessly as the shattered remains of the Lillie Marlene settled and then plunged from sight, taking with it the entire boarding party.
    After studying the evidence and listening to eyewitnesses, the Coast Guard Board of Inquiry closed the case with the finding: “The death of the crew and passengers and the subsequent explosion and sinking of the yacht, the Lillie Marlene, can only be classified as caused by circumstances or persons unknown.”
    Pitt closed the folder and placed it on Hunter's desk.
    “What we have there,” Hunter said somberly, “is the only known case of a distress call prior to the disaster, as well as eyewitness reports as to the condition of the personnel involved.”
    Pitt said: “It would appear that the Lillie Marlene was attacked by a boarding crew.”
    Boland shook his head. “The men who boarded from the San Gabriel were cleared. Radio directional equipment established the Spanish freighter's position as being twelve miles from the disaster when she answered the distress call.”
    “No other ship was sighted?” Pitt asked.
    “I know what you're thinking,” Denver volunteered. “But piracy on the high seas went out with the manufacture of cutlasses.”
    “Dupree's message also mentioned a mist or fog bank,” Pitt persisted. “Did the San Gabriel sight anything resembling a fog?”
    “Negative,” Hunter answered. “The first Mayday came in at 2050 hours. That's dusk in this latitude. A dark horizon would have blotted out any hint of an isolated fog bank.”
    “Besides,” Denver said, “fog in this part of the Pacific Ocean in the month of July is as rare as a blizzard on WaiMki Beach. A small, localized fog bank is formed when stagnant warm air cools to condensation most often on a still night when it meets with