"What any red-blooded All American boy would do. I'm going to take Giordino and a couple of other men and dive along the shore until I find the cave. It most likely lies at the base of the cliffs directly under the villa. Once we discover the entrance we will enter, seize any equipment and evidence, make a citizen's arrest of your uncle and then call the gendarmerie."

"You're insane," she said again, only with much more feeling this time. "The whole caper, or whatever you call it, is idiotic. You can't go through with it. Please, please believe me. It won't work."

"It's no use begging. You can kiss your uncle and his rotten money good-bye. We hit the water at one." Pitt yawned again. "Now if you will kindly excuse me, I'd like to get a little shut-eye."

The tears were back. She shook her head slowly from side to side. "It's idiotic," she whispered over and over, turned and walked into the head, slamming the door behind her.

Pitt lay there, staring at the overhead. She was right, of course, he thought. It did sound like an idiotic caper. But then, what else could she think, she only knew the half of it.

16

16

The restless sea curled to a tall crest and beckoned like the ominous finger of doom before it rammed into the unyielding gray cliffs. The air was warm and clear and stirred by a faint breath from the southwest. A ghost, or so the First Attempt seemed—a white steel ghost—glided at slow speed closer and closer to the boiling cauldron, until it looked like disaster was inevitable. At the last instant, no sooner, Gunn spun the helm to starboard, sending the First Attempt on a parallel course to the rocky cliff base. He kept glancing warily from the needle, traveling across the fathometer's graph paper, to the surfline, a scant fifty yards away, and back again.

"How's that for curb service?" he asked without turning. The voice was soft and controlled; he was as calm as a fisherman in a rowboat on a placid Minnesota lake.

"Your old seamanship instructor at Annapolis would be proud of you," Pitt replied. Unlike Gunn, he was staring straight ahead.

"It's not half as grim as it looks," Gunn said, gesturing at the fathometer. "The bottom is a good ten fathoms below our keel!"

"Sixty feet in less than a hundred yards; that's quite a drop-off."

Gunn lifted one hand from the helm and took off his gold-braided Navy cap, swiping a few beads of sweat that hung from his hairline.

"It's not an uncommon occurrence in an area that's free of outer reefs."

"It's a good sign," Pitt said thoughtfully.

"How so?"

"Plenty of room for a sub to maneuver without surface detection."