Pitt could picture the admiral in his office, brimming with pride and loving every minute of the limelight. He could see the flaming red hair with all trace of gray tinted away, the matching Vandyke beard, trimmed to a sharp point, the blue eyes that had to be flashing like neon signs from heartfelt satisfaction. And, he could almost smell the acrid smoke of one of Sandecker's personalized cigars.

"Does that mean we all get a raise?" asked Pitt sarcastically.

"Don't let it go to your head," Sandecker snapped back. "Money can't buy glory."

"A bonus might be a nice gesture on your part."

"Don't push your luck. You're lucky I don't take the ship repairs out of your pay."

Pitt wasn't fooled for a second by the gruff attitude. Sandecker had a reputation for generosity among the employees of NUMA. Pitt would have bet the admiral was already computing bonus checks, and he would have been right. Not that Sandecker didn't have a mercenary streak when it came to his beloved NUMA. Pitt didn't need a crystal ball to know that Sandecker was already planning on how he would milk the rescue and its resulting publicity to obtain an extra fifty million dollars out of Congress for his next year's budget.

"That's not all you might want to deduct," said Pitt roguishly. "To stay afloat we had to jettison almost all our equipment into the sea."

"The submersibles, too?" Sandecker's voice took on a serious tone.

"We set them adrift but picked them up later."

"Good, you're going to need them."

"I don't follow you, Admiral. With half our underwater research gear lying on the seabed, there is no way we can carry out our original mission of mapping the Tonga Trench."

"I don't expect you to map the trench," he said slowly. "I expect you to dive on the Emerald Dolphin. Your job now is to survey what's left of her for evidence relating to the fire and the cause of her unexplained rapid sinking." He paused. "You did know she inexplicably sank while under tow."

"Yes, Captain Burch and I monitored communications between the tug and its home office."

"The Deep Encounter is the only vessel within a thousand miles that can do the job."

"Exploring a monstrous cruise ship from a submersible at twenty thousand or more feet is not the same as sifting through the ashes of a burned-out house. Besides, we had to deep-six the crane."

"Buy or rent a new one. Do the best you can and try to come back with something. The cruise ship industry is going to suffer regardless of what you find, and the insurance companies are more than willing to compensate NUMA for our efforts."

"I'm not a fire insurance investigator. Just what exactly am I supposed to look for?"

"Don't worry," said Sandecker. "I'm sending someone who has experience in marine disasters. He's also an expert in deep submergence vehicles."

"Anybody I know?" asked Pitt.

"You should," said Sandecker cagily. "He's your assistant special projects director."