30

After Admiral Sandecker's morning run from his Watergate condominium to NUMA headquarters, he went directly to his office without stopping off at the agency gym to shower and change into a business suit. Rudi Gunn was waiting for him, a grim expression on his hawklike face. He stared over his horn-rim glasses as Sandecker sat down at his desk, wiping the sweat from his face and neck with a towel.

"What's the latest word from Pitt and Giordino?"

"Nothing in the last eight hours." Gunn was uneasy. "Not since they entered what they described as a ventilator shaft leading to a deep underground tunnel that Pitt reckoned ran through the jungle of Nicaragua from the Pacific to the Caribbean."

"No contact at all?"

"Only silence," answered Gunn. "Impossible to communicate by phone when they're deep underground."

"A tunnel running from sea to sea," murmured Sandecker, his voice dubious.

Gunn nodded slightly. "Pitt was certain of it. He also reported that the builder was the Odyssey conglomeration."

"Odyssey?" Sandecker looked at Gunn in confusion. "Again?"

Gunn nodded again.

"They seem to crop up everywhere." Sandecker rose from his desk and gazed out the window overlooking the Potomac River. He could just see the furled red sails of his little schooner docked at a marina downriver. "I'm not aware of any tunnel being dug through Nicaragua. There was talk about building an underground railroad to transport cargo on high-speed trains. But that was several years ago, and as far as I know nothing ever came of it."

Gunn opened a file, pulled out several photos and spread them on the admiral's desk. "Here are satellite photos taken over a period of several years of a sleepy little port called San Juan del Norte."

"Where did these come from?" asked Sandecker with interest.

Gunn smiled. "Hiram Yaeger tapped his library of satellite photos from the various intelligence services and programmed them into NUMA's data files."

Sandecker adjusted his glasses and began examining the photos, his eyes touching on the dates they were taken, printed on the bottom borders. After a few minutes, he looked up. "Five years ago, the port looked deserted. Then it looks like heavy equipment was barged in and dock facilities built for cargo containerships."

"You'll notice that any and all supply and equipment containers were immediately moved into prefabricated warehouses, and never came out."

"Incredible that such a vast undertaking has gone unnoticed for so long."

Gunn laid a file on the desk beside the photos. "Yaeger also obtained a report on the Odyssey's programs and operations. Their financial dealings are sketchy. Because they're headquartered in Brazil, they are not required to release profit-and-loss statements."

"What about their stockholders? Surely they must receive annual reports."

"They're not listed on any of the international stock markets because the company's wholly owned by Specter."

"Could they have funded such a project on their own?" asked Sandecker.

"As far as we can tell, they have the resources. But Yaeger believes that on a project of this magnitude, they were likely funded by the People's Republic of China, which has bankrolled Specter's Central American developments in the past."

"Sounds logical. The Chinese are investing heavily in the area and are building a sphere of influence."

"Another factor in the secrecy," explained Gunn, "is the opportunity to sidestep all environmental, social and economic impacts. Opposition by Nicaraguan activists and any problems dealing with right-of-way would simply be ignored by their government while the work progressed covertly."

"What other projects are Specter and the Red Chinese working on together?"

"Port facilities on both sides of the Panama Canal and a bridge that will cross it, scheduled to open early next year."

"But why all the secrecy?" muttered Sandecker, as he returned to his chair. "What is to be gained from it?"

Gunn threw up his hands helplessly. "Without more intelligence, we're in the dark on that score."

"We can't just sit on this thing."

"Shall we contact Central Intelligence and the Pentagon about our suspicions?" asked Gunn.

Sandecker looked pensive for a moment. Then he said, "No, we'll go direct to the president's national security advisor."

"I agree," said Gunn. "This could prove to be a very serious situation."

"Damn!" Sandecker blurted in frustration. "If only we'd hear from Pitt and Giordino. Then we might have a clue as to what's going on down there."

Having reached the dead end, Pitt and Giordino had no option but to turn around and speed back in the direction they'd come. The fourth of the four tunnels appeared deserted and devoid of all equipment. It was as empty as though men had never created it. Only the pumps on both ends, standing eerily silent, revealed a veiled purpose that Pitt was at a loss to explain.

What was also strange was that no fleet of security guard cars, lights flashing, came hurtling though the empty and darkened tunnel after them. Nor were there any security cameras. They had all been removed when the tunnel was completed.

The answer quickly became obvious.

"I can see now," said Giordino calmly, "why the security guards are in no hurry to grab us."

"We have no place to go," Pitt finished answering the puzzle. "Our little venture into the bizarre is over. All Specter's security people have to do is wait until we get hungry and thirsty, then welcome us back into the main tunnel when we give ourselves up in hope of a last meal before we're hung."

"They would probably prefer to let us rot in here."

"There is that."

Pitt wiped a sleeve across his forehead to blot the sweat that suddenly began streaming into his eyes. "Have you noticed the temperature in this tunnel is much higher than the others?"

"It's beginning to feel like a steam bath in here," said Giordino, his face glistening.

"The air like sulfur."

"Speaking of hunger. How's your supply of granola bars?"

"Fresh out."

Abruptly, the thought crossed their minds at the same time, and they turned to each other and uttered two words in unison.

"Ventilator shaft."

Giordino suddenly became sober. "Maybe not. I didn't see any raised control booths in the outer tunnels."

"They would have been removed along with the railroad tracks and the overhead lighting and sealed, since they were no longer essential to remove pollution from the excavation."

"Yes, but the ladder rungs were embedded in the tunnel walls. I'll bet next month's pay, if I live to spend it, that they didn't bother to remove them."

"We'll know soon enough," said Pitt, as Giordino hit the accelerator and the cart leaped forward, its headlights probing the darkness ahead.

After covering nearly twenty miles, Giordino spotted the rungs of a ladder crawling up one wall. He parked about thirty feet away so the headlights would illuminate a wider area of the tunnel wall. "The rungs go up to where a ventilator shaft control booth once hung," he said, rubbing the stubble that had sprouted on his cheeks and chin.

Pitt stepped from the cart and began climbing the rungs. It had been a year or more since the tunnel was completed and stripped down. The rungs were slimy with dampness and flaked with rust. He reached the top and found a round manholelike iron cover sealing the entrance to the ventilator shaft above. There was a sliding bolt holding it against bottom stops.