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Catherine Archer ~ Dragon 1~ Catherine Archer
Cressida Cowell [How to Train How to Speak Dragonese (epub) i
Cheryl Dragon [Men of Alaska Sterling Sunshine [Loose Id] (e
Dragonlance Ergoth 01 A Warrior's Journey # Paul B Th
Dragonlance Heroes II 01 Kaz the Minotaur # Richard A Kn
Dragonlance Kingpriest 01 Chosen of the Gods # Chris Pier
Dragon Kin 01 Fire in the sky Michelle Hasker
Dragonlance Dhamon Saga 01 Downfall # Jean Rabe
Britta Ashley [Dragon's Lair Against Her Will [Blushing] (ep
Brandis, Mark Weltraumpartisa Unternehmen Delphin

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.As Dennings' shattered aircraft and its dead crew settled into the seabed a thousand feet beneath the surface, another B-29 in a later time zone and six hundred miles to the southeast set up for its bomb run.With Colonel Paul Tibbets at the controls, the Enola Gay had arrived over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.Neither flight commander was aware of the other.Each man thought only his aircraft and crew was carrying the first atomic bomb to be dropped in war.Dennings' Demons had failed to make its rendezvous with destiny.The stillness of the deep seabed was as silent as the cloud that settled over the event.The heroic attempt by Dennings and his crew was buried in bureaucratic secrecy and forgotten.Dirk Pitt 10 - DragonBIG JOHNOctober 3, 1993Western Pacific OceanThe worst of the typhoon had passed.The mad thrashing seas had subsided, but the waves still climbed the bows and came green and leaden over the decks, leaving a welter of foam behind.The thick black clouds broke apart and the wind died to a gusty thirty knots.To the southwest, shafts of sunlight broke through, painting blue circles on the tumbling swells.Braving the winds and spray, Captain Arne Korvold stood on the open bridge of the Norwegian Rindal Lines passenger-cargo liner Narvik and aimed his binoculars at a huge ship wallowing dead in the whitecaps.She was big, a Japanese auto carrier by the look of her.Her upper works stretched from blunt bow to a perfectly squared stern, like a rectangular box laid horizontal.Except for the bridge and the crew's quarters on the upper deck, there were no ports or windows on her sides.She seemed to have a ten-degree permanent list but rolled to twenty as the swells smashed into her exposed port broadside.The only sign of life was a wisp of smoke from her stack.Korvold grimly noted that her lifeboats had been launched, and a sweep of the restless sea failed to find any sign of them.He refocused the binoculars and read the English name spelled out beneath the Japanese characters on the bow.She was called the Divine Star.Korvold returned to the comfort of the central bridge and leaned into the communications room.“Still no response?”The radio operator shook his head.“Nothing.Not a peep wince we sighted her.Her radio must be closed down.Impossible to believe they abandoned ship without a distress call.”Korvold stared silently through the bridge windows at the Japanese ship drifting less than a kilometer off his starboard rail.Norwegian by birth, he was a short, distinguished man who never made a hurried gesture.His ice-blue eyes seldom blinked, and his lips beneath the trimmed beard seemed constantly frozen in a slight smile.Twenty-six years at sea, mostly in cruise ships, he had a warm and friendly disposition, respected by his crew and admired by the passengers.He tugged at his short graying beard and swore quietly to him self.The tropical storm had unexpectedly swung north onto his course and put him nearly two days behind schedule on his passage from the port of Pusan, Korea, to San Francisco.Korvol had not left the bridge for forty-eight hours and he was exhausted.Just as he was about to take a welcome rest, they sighted the seemingly derelict Divine Star.Now he found himself faced with an enigma and a time-consuming search for the Japanese car carrier's boats.He was also burdened with the responsibility of 130 passengers, most seasick to the gills, who were in no mood for a benevolent rescue operation.“Permission to take a boarding crew across, Captain?”Korvold looked up into the sculpted Nordic face of Chief Officer Oscar Steep.The eyes that stared back were a darker blue than Korvold's.The chief officer stood lean and as straight as a light pole, skin tanned and hair bleached blond from exposure to the sun.Korvold didn't immediately answer but walked over to a bridge window and gazed down at the sea separating the two ships.From wave crest to trough the waves were running three to meters.“I'm not of a mind to risk lives, Mr.Steep.Better wait until seas calm a bit.”“I've taken a boat through worse.”“No hurry.She's a dead ship, dead as a body in the morgue.And from the look of her, her cargo has shifted and she's taking on water.Better we leave her be and search for her boats.”“There may be injured men over there,” Steen persisted.Korvold shook his head.“No captain would have abandoned ship and left injured crewmen behind.”“No captain in his right senses maybe.But what kind of a man would desert a sound ship and lower boats in the midst of a sixty-five knot gale typhoon without sending a Mayday signal?”“A mystery all right,” Korvold agreed.“And there's her cargo to consider,” Steen continued.“Her waterline indicates a full load.She looks capable of transporting over seven thousand automobiles.”Korvold gave Steen a shrewd look.“You thinking salvage, Mr.Steen?”“Yes, sir, I am.If she's totally abandoned with a full cargo, and we can sail her into port, our salvage claim should be equal to half her value or better.The company as well as the crew could share in five or six hundred million kroner.”Korvold considered for a few moments, a tantalizing thought of greed wrestling with a deep feeling of foreboding.Greed won out.“Pick your boarding crew, and include the assistant engineer.If there's smoke from her funnel, her machinery must still be in working order.” He paused.“But I still prefer you wait for the water to settle.”“No time,” Steen announced flatly.“If her list increases another ten degrees, we may be too late.I'd better go quickly.”Captain Korvold sighed.He was going against his better judgment, but it also occurred to him that once the Divine Star's situation was known, every salvage tug within a thousand miles would come full speed toward their position like tow-truck operators flocking to a highway accident.Finally he shrugged.“When you're assured none of the Divine Star's crew is on board, and you can get her under way, report back and I'll begin a search for her boats.”Steen was gone almost before Korvold finished speaking.He assembled his men and was lowered down into the swirling water within ten minutes.The boarding party consisted of himself and four seamen-- the assistant chief engineer, Olaf Andersson, and the communications man, David Sakagawa, the only crewman on board the Narvik who could speak Japanese.The seamen were to probe the vessel while Andersson examined the engine room.Stem was to take formal possession of the auto carrier if it was found abandoned.With Steen at the helm, the double-ender launch plowed through the heavy seas, struggling over the crests of the waves that threatened to swamp her before plunging down into the troughs.The big Volvo marine engine growled without a miss as they bore down on the auto carrier with the wind and sea astern of them.A hundred meters from the Divine Star they discovered they weren't alone.A school of sharks circled the listing ship as though some inner sense told them it was going to sink and maybe leave behind some tasty scraps.The seaman at the wheel slipped the boat under the stubby bow on the lee side [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]