It took Juan just ten minutes of quick swimming and a few minutes of decompression to reach the surface and drag himself back onto the Sakir’s hull. Linc was there in an instant to help him off with his gear. “Well?”

“Linda saved all but a couple of them,” Juan said with a proud smile.

“Booyah!” Linc whooped. “I knew my girl would pull through. What happened?”

“She got everyone down into the bilge after the Sakir rolled but before it completely filled with water. They’re in there now, inside a bubble of pressurized air. I worked out with the ship’s engineer how to rescue them and not have this tub sink from under our feet. What about the Oregon?”

“Launched MacD and Eddie twenty minutes ago, and, if you could see past the rudder, you’d know she’s about ten minutes from pulling alongside of us.”

“Perfect.” Juan strode over to the chopper to open a line to Hanley. He laid out what they would need, and Max promised to have it ready by the time they arrived.

While Linc got the cutting torch ready, Juan changed out of his scuba suit, dried himself with a rag Gomez promised was clean, and threw on the outdoor clothes he’d grabbed from his cabin, complete with rubber boots that went up to his knees.

As soon as the Oregon was in position on the windward side of the Sakir so that her massive bulk shielded the work crew from the worst of the storm, a Zodiac shot out of the boat garage, trailing a thick rubber hose. Max was at the controls, and with him were some of his boys from the engineering staff.

There was no time for small talk. The storm was intensifying. Soon waves would sweep clear across the hulk and suspend any attempt at getting the survivors out. From the measurements Vogel had given him, Cabrillo marked out a three-by-three-foot spot on the hull, and Linc got busy with the torch. Molten metal was soon drizzling through the cuts he made as the torch slowly ate the inch-and-a-half-thick plate. Hanley had brought over a second plasma torch, and he was at Linc’s side cutting with abandon. Farther along the hull, the Oregon’s engineers were preparing to drill a hole to insert the air hose. They had tubes of industrial contact glue ready to seal the hose into place once the nozzle was inside the bilge. Gomez Adams was warming the chopper for the short hop back to the hangar.

In all, Cabrillo’s people were working like the well-oiled machine he knew them to be.