Giordino cupped his hand and spoke softly into Pitt's ear. "Do you want to split up?"

"No," Pitt whispered. "Better we stick together. Let's start in the pilothouse and work down."

They could have gone up the outside stairways to the pilothouse, but elected to stay out of sight of any of the hijackers who might step outside the mess room and spot them. Instead, they slipped through a hatch and moved up a companionway four decks to the pilothouse. They found it dark and empty. Pitt went into the communications room and closed the door, while Giordino stood guard outside. He picked up the Globalstar phone and dialed Sandecker's cell phone number. While the connection went through, he checked his orange-faced Doxa dive watch. The dial read two minutes past ten. He mentally adjusted the eight-hour difference with Washington time. It would be six in the morning there. The admiral would be out running his daily routine of five miles.

Sandecker answered on his global phone. After running three miles he was still breathing normally. Time was too short for Pitt to say anything vague to throw off anyone homing in on the call. He gave a brief, concise report on finding the Deep Encounter and gave its exact location.

"My crew and scientific team?" asked the admiral, as if they were members of his immediate family.

"The issue is still in doubt," answered Pitt, repeating Major Deverieux's famous message just before the fall of Wake Island. "I will contact you when I have a positive answer." Then he closed the connection.

He stepped from the communications room. "See or hear anything?"

"Quiet as a grave."

"I wish," he said moodily, "you wouldn't use the word grave."

They left the pilothouse and dropped down to the next deck below. It was the same story. The staterooms and hospital were as silent as body trays in a morgue. Pitt entered his stateroom, fumbled in a drawer and was surprised to find his faithful old Colt automatic right where he'd left it. He shoved it under the waistband of his shorts and handed the revolver to Giordino, who took it without a word. Next, Pitt retrieved a small penlight, flicked it on and swung the beam around the room. Nothing had been touched. The only item not where he'd left it in the closet was Dr. Egan's leather case. It was sitting open on the bed.

Giordino found the same scene in his stateroom. None of his belongings had been searched or moved about.

"Nothing about these guys makes sense," said Giordino quietly. "I never heard of hijacking pirates who weren't interested in plunder."

Pitt aimed the light into the passageway. "Let's move on."

They continued down the companionway to the deck that contained eight more staterooms, the mess room, galley, conference room and lounge. Dishes with decaying food still sat on the mess table, magazines were strewn on tables and couches in the lounge as if recently cast off by their readers. Cigarettes that had burned to their filters lay in ashtrays in the conference room. Pots and pans still sat on the galley stove, their contents turning green. It was as though everyone on board the ship had vanished in a puff of smoke.