“Hand me the gun,” Pitt told his son.

Dirk pulled the SIG Sauer from his waist and handed it to his father. Pitt shook it to clear the water and held the muzzle to Ann’s handcuffs. The shot split the chain that linked the cuffs and freed Ann from the container.

“Would have tried that earlier, but you were too far underwater when we found you.”

“But then I would have missed the ride.” Ann smiled for the first time in days. She got to her feet and looked into the canal where the Salzburg had vanished. “The Sea Arrow’s motor was aboard.”

“They’re not going to get it now,” Pitt said.

“But they still have the plans,” she said. “I saw them in the boat with Pablo.”

Pitt nodded. He had seen Bolcke and Pablo flee in the boat while he tried to save Ann. “There’s only one place they can go.” Having examined a map of the canal on the Adelaide’s bridge, he knew the next lock was only a short distance away.

Dirk was already crossing the deck to an inflatable secured beneath a tarp. In minutes, he had it winched over the side and lowered into the water with Pitt and Ann aboard. Already drenched, he dove over the side of the Adelaide and swam to the side of the boat, where he was helped aboard. Pitt started its small outboard, and they were soon zipping up the canal.

The canal curved past Gold Hill, a small bluff that marked the continental divide and its deepest area of excavation. Just beyond it, the canal straightened, and the Pedro Miguel Locks appeared two miles away. Bolcke and Pablo had already reached the lock and sailed into the north chamber, whose gates had been opened in preparation for the Salzburg.

Pablo docked the boat against the center island, which bisected the lock’s two chambers. He assisted a pair of canal workers in attaching fore and aft mooring lines to the crew boat before he jumped off. With Bolcke still aboard, the workers walked the boat to the far end of the chamber and tied it off, forgoing the tiny locomotives used to maneuver larger vessels.

Pablo strode toward the control house, a multistory white structure in the middle of the island that managed the water flow for the chambers.

A gruff transit supervisor with a clipboard met Pablo. “That’s no four-hundred-foot bulk carrier.”

“We had an accident with the ship and need to make passage at once. Mr. Bolcke will pay triple your usual fee if you don’t book it.”

“Is that him in the boat?”

Pablo nodded.

“Haven’t seen him for a while.” He pulled a radio off his hip and called the control house. A minute later, the chamber’s massive gates began to close. Soon the waters in the chamber would drain out the bottom, lowering the boat for the next section of the canal.