"I'm only sorry I didn't boot him twice as hard," Pitt said through clenched teeth.

Von Till ignored him. He said to the men in the water: "Drop your diving equipment on the bottom, gentlemen. Then climb up on deck. Quickly, we have little time to waste."

Thomas raised his mask and threw an if-looks-could-kill stare at von Till. "We're damn well comfortable right where we are."

Von Till shrugged. "Very well, it seems you need an incentive." He turned and shouted into the dim shadows of the cavern. "Hans, the lights!"

Suddenly, a string of overhead floodlights burst on, illuminating the cavern from ceiling to water. Pitt could now see that the submarine was moored to a floating dock that began at a tunnel entrance on the far wall and extended two hundred feet across the water like an enormous wooden tongue. The domed ceiling was much lower in this inner cavern as compared to the outer one, but its horizontal area was several times larger; the square footage would have easily equaled a football field. Along the right wall, on an overhanging ledge, five men stood in frozen immobility, their hands gripped on leveled machine pistols. Each was dressed in the same style of uniform that Pitt had previously seen on von Till's chauffeur. There was no mistaking the business-like manner in which they aimed their weapons at the men in the water.

"I think you'd better do as the man says," Pitt advised.

The mist returned, but the burning lights kept it to a minimum, dooming any chance for escape. Spencer and Hersong climbed aboard the sub first, followed by Knight and Thomas. Woodson, as usual, was last, still clutching his camera in defiance of von Till's commands.

Knight helped Pitt off with his airtank. "Let me take a look at your leg, sir." Gently he eased Pitt to a sitting position on the deck. Then he removed the lead weights from his weight belt and wrapped the nylon webbing around Pitt's wound, stemming the blood flow. He looked up at Pitt and grinned. "It seems as though every time I turn around, you're bleeding."

"A messy habit I can't rid myself of lately—"

Pitt stopped short. The mist was disappearing again, and the lights had now exposed a second submarine moored on the opposite side of the dock. He surveyed both subs, comparing them. The one he and his men rested on had a flush deck from stem to stern, no projections anywhere. The other sub was different; it still retained its original conning tower, a massive structure that sat on its hull like a distorted half-bubble. Three men, backs turned to the drama behind them, were busily removing the machine guns from a shattered airplane that sat on the broad deck.

"Now I know where the yellow Albatros materialized from," said Pitt. "An old Japanese I-Boat, capable of launching a small scout plane. They haven't been in use since World War II."