"Object in the silt to the right," Giordino said, jolting Pitt from his morbid thoughts.

Pitt leaned forward. "A two-hundred-liter drum. Three more off to the left."

"They're all over the place," said Giordino. "Looks like a junkyard down here."

"See any markings?"

"Only some stenciled lettering in Spanish. Probably weight and volume information."

"I'll move closer to the one dead ahead. A trace of whatever was in them is still rising to the surface."

Pitt edged the Deep Rover's sphere to within a few inches of the sunken drum. The lights showed a dark substance curling from the drain hole.

"Oil?" said Giordino.

Pitt shook his head. "The color is more nistlike. No, wait, it's red.

By God, it's an oil-base red paint."

"There's another cylindrical object next to it."

"What do you make of it?"

"I'd say it's a big roll of plastic sheeting."

"I'd say you're right."

"Might not be a bad idea to take it aboard the Sounder for examination.

Hold position. I'll grab it with the manipulators."

Pitt nodded silently and held the Deep Rover steady against the gentle bottom current. Giordino clutched the handgrip controls and curled the arm assemblies around the plastic roll, much like a human would bend both elbows to embrace a friend. Next he positioned the four-function hands so they gripped the bottom edge.

"She's secure," he announced. "Give us a little vertical thrust to pull it out of the sillt."

Pitt complied, and the Deep Rover slowly rose, carrying the roll with her, followed by a swirling cloud of fine silt. for a few moments they couldn't see. Then Pitt eased the submersible ahead until they broke into clear water again.

"We should be coming up on her," said Giordino. "Sonar shows a massive target in front and slightly to the right."

"We show you to be practically on top of her," said Gunn.

Like a ghostly image in a darkened mirror, the ship rose out of the gloom. Magnified by the water distortion, she seemed a staggering sight.

"We have visual contact," Giordino reported.

Pitt slowed the Deep Rover to a stop seven meters from the hull. Then he maneuvered the sub up and alongside the derelict's foredeck.

"What the hell?" Pitt broke off suddenly. Then, "Rudi, what colors were on the Lady Flamborough?"

"Hold on." No more than ten seconds elapsed before Gunn answered. "Light blue hull and superstructure."

"This ship has a red hull with white upperworks."

Gunn did not reply immediately. When he did, his voice sounded old and tired. "I'm sorry, Dirk. We must have stumbled on a missing World War Two ship that was torpedoed by a U-boat. "

"Can't be," muttered Giordino distantly. "This wreck is pristine. No sign of growth or corrosion. I can see oil and air bubbles escaping.

She can't be more than a week old."

"Negative," Stewart's voice came over the radio. "The only ship reported missing during the last six months in this part of the Atlantic is your cruise liner."

"This ain't no cruise ship," Giordino shot back.

"Hold for a minute," said Pitt. "I'm going to come around the stern and see if we can make an identification."

He threw the Deep Rover into a steep bank and glided parali lel to the ship's side. When they reached the stern, he spun sideways to a halt.

The sub hung there motionless only one meter from the name of the ship painted on beaded welding.

"Oh, my God," Giordino whispered in incredulous awe.

"We've been conned."

Pitt did not sit there in stunned disbelief. He grinned like a madman.

The puzzle was far from complete, but the vital pieces had fallen into place. The white raised letters on the red steel plates did not read Lady Flamborough.

They read General Bravo.

from four hundred meters her designers and shipbuilders would not have recognized the Lady Flamborough. Her funnel had been reconstructed and every square inch of her repainted. To complete the facade, the hull was streaked with simulated rust.

Her once-beautiful superstructure, stateroom windows and promenade deck were now hidden by great sheets of fiberboard assembled to look like cargo containers.

Where the cruise liner's modern, rounded bridge featurrs were impossible to remove or hide, they were squared with wooden frwnework and canvas and painted with fake hatches and portholes.

Before the lights of Punta del Este had dropped astern, every crew member and passenger was drafted into forced labor parties and driven to the point of exhaustion by Ammar's armed hijackers. The ship's officers, cruise directors, the stewards, chefs and waiters, and ordinary deckhands-they all hammered and slaved at assembling the prefabricated containers through the night.

None of the VIP guests was spared. Senator Pitt and Hala Kamfl, Presidents Hasan and De Lorenzo, along with their cabinet members and staff aides, were all pressed into service as carpenters and painters.

By the time the cruise liner rendezvoused with the General Bravo, the counterfeit cargo containers were in place and the ship sported a nearly identical configuration and color scheme.

from the waterline up, the newly disguised Lady Flamborough could have easily passed as the container ship. An overhead inspection from the air would have revealed few discrepancies. Only a close examination from the sea might have detected obvious differences.

Captain Juu Machado and eighteen crewmen from the General Bravo transferred to the cruise liner after opening all seacocks and cargo doors and detonating strategically placed charges throughout the hull.

With a series of muffled explosions the container ship slipped beneath the sea with only a few faint gurgles of protest.

When the eastern sky began to brighten with a new sun, the disguised Lady Flamborough was steaming south toward the advertised destination of the General Bravo. But when the port of San Pablo, Argentina, was forty kilometers off the starboard beam, the liner bypassed the port and continued due south.

Ammar's ingenious scheme had worked. Three days had passed, and the world was still fooled into believing the Lady Flamborough and her distinguished passengers were lying somewhere on the bottom of the sea.

Ammar sat at a chart table and marked the ship's latest position. Then he drew a straight line to his final destination and marked it with an X. Smugly complacent, he dropped the pencil and lit a long Dunhill cigarette, exhaling the smoke across the chart like a bank of mist.

Sixteen hours, he reckoned. Sixteen more hours of sailing time without pursuit and the ship would be securely hidden without the slightest chance of detection.

Captain Machado stepped into the chart room from the bridge, balancing a small tray on one hand. "Would you like a cup of tea and a croissant?"

he asked in fluent English.

"'Thank you, Captain. Come to think of it, I haven't eaten since we departed Punta del Este."

Machado set the tray on the table and poured the tea. "I know you haven't slept since my crew and I came on board."

"There is still much to do."

"Perhaps we should begin by formally introducing ourselves."

"I know who you are, or at least the name you go by," said Ammar indifferently. "I'm not interested in lengthy biographies."