It never came.

Lee Tong had forgotten to insert a new clip after firing his final round at Pitt on the towboat. He lowered the carbine, his lips stretched into an inscrutable smile. "It seems we have a standoff, Mr. Pitt."

"Only temporary," said Pitt, recocking the hammer and keeping the revolver raised and aimed. "My people will be coming aboard any minute now."

Lee Tong sighed and relaxed. "Then I can do little else but surrender and wait for arrest."

"You'll never stand trial."

The smile turned into a sneer. "That's not for you to decide.

Besides, you're hardly in a position to-" Suddenly he flipped the carbine around, gripping the barrel and raising it as a club. The rifle butt was on a vicious downswing when Pitt squeezed the trigger and blasted Lee Tong in the throat with the barrel loaded with buckshot. The carbine poised in minair and then fell from his hand as he stumbled backward until striking the wall and dropping heavily to the deck.

Pitt left him where he lay and threw off the cover over Loren's cocoon. He gently lifted her out and carried her to the open elevator.

He checked the circuit breakers and found them on, but there was still no response from the lift motors when he pressed the "up" button.

He had no way of knowing the generators that provided electricity to the barge had run out of fuel and shut down, leaving only the emergency battery power to illuminate the overhead lighting.

Scrounging through a supply locker, he found a rope, which he tied under Loren's arms. Then he pulled himself through the elevator roof's trapdoor and scaled the shaft lander to the top deck of the barge.

Slowly, gently, he eased Loren's body upward until she lay on the rusting deck. Winded, he took a minute to catch his breath and look around. The Stonewall Jackson was still burning fiercely, but the flames were being fought with firehoses from the towboat.

About two miles to the west a white Coast Guard cutter was driving through the light swells toward their position, while to the south he could just make out the sail tower of a nuclear submarine.

Taking a short length of the rope, Pitt tied Loren loosely to a cleat so she wouldn't roll into the sea, then he returned below.

When he entered the isolation chamber again, Lee Tong was gone.

A trail of blood led up the corridor and ended at an open hatch to a storage deck below. He saw no reason to waste time on a dying murderer and turned to rescue the Vice President. , Before he took two steps, a tremendous blast lifted him off his feet and hurled him face downward twenty feet away. The impact from the concussion drove the breath from his lungs and the ringing in his ears prevented him from hearing the sea rush in through a gaping hole torn in the hull of the barge.