Assignment - Sulu Sea Read Online Free PDF

strip—"
    “What amphibian?"
    “My own plane. And I took commercial jets the rest of the
way. And that’s how I go back. It‘s fastest, and I don’t think it would be
politically wise, anyway, to have a fancy jet touching down at Pandakan these
days. It’s pretty touchy right now, Malachy says we can’t even put a dinghy in
the harbor flying the American flag, without all the ex-colonials
screaming bloody imperialism. So if you come back with me at all, you do it
quietly, Malachy says, without a big fuss.”
    He nodded. “You may be right.”
    “I tell you, Samuel, I’ve heard your praises sung all my
life, but I only tool: one thing seriously. when our grandpas both agreed in
their letters that you were one smart man. If those two rascals respected you
like that, I figured I’d better take their opinion at face value. So I
came here. It’s costing ‘me time and money, so don’t make me regret it, and
don’t try to keep me here longer than this afternoon.”
    The telephone rang. It was Washington, via the magazine
offices of Pearl of the Pacific. General McFee’s voice held a strange
note.
    “Cajun, have you still got that girl who claims she buried
Lieutenant Commander Peter S. Holcomb?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I went to the top for you, and she may be telling the
truth. This comes straight from Joint Chiefs. There‘s a quiet but desperate flap
in BuOp at Navy that’s gone through Defense right to the President. Your friend
Holcomb was aboard the new nuclear attack sub Andrew Jackson as security officer. He ought to be aboard that boat
right now somewhere down there. If he isn’t, something is desperately wrong.”
General Dickinson McFee paused. “You might say it’s impossible, but ONI thinks
the missing nuclear sub might have been pirated.”
     
                                                                                                    chapter four
    IN DURELL’s world, the impossible happened often enough to
seem commonplace. Although forty-eight hours had passed since the Jackson last
reported her position, there had not been a press release yet. This was not a
Thresher incident, opened at once to world communications. There was no chance
that the Jackson had met such a fate. Whatever had happened, it had happened
deliberately—and with malice aforethought.
    Durell left Willi Panapura in the Luakulani Palms on Her
promise to wait for him and took a taxi past the Ala Moana Park along the sea,
with its tennis courts and Hawaiian Village, into downtown Honolulu. The CIA
offices behind the Pearl of the Pacific magazine front were not far from the Iolani Palace. A restaurant on the lower floor
sold coral jewelry and fried octopus. From the elevator, he was passed through
the double-locked rear doors into the interior rooms where teletypes chattered
and several harassed men Worked on scrambler phones. Beyond, there was an office
crowded with grim Navy brass from Pearl Harbor. Durell entered, expecting a
storm, and got one.
    The highest echelons of the Navy had held in utmost secrecy
that unaccountable silence from the Andrew
Jackson since its last report from the Sulu Sea, when it was cruising
toward the Tarakuta Group. Every radio effort since then had failed. There was
no reply to an urgent Code Red call. Seventh Fleet jets had scoured the shallow
seas looking for telltale distress buoys, signals, sea dye or wreckage. Nothing
had shown up. Absolutely nothing. No dim shadows were sighted on the ocean
bottom, no signals, no survivors. The Andrew
Jackson had simply vanished. She was gone. Disappeared.
    The Navy was further disturbed because no one was supposed
to know about it—yet. And Durell was aware of the suspicion and hostility with
which the CINCPAC officers regarded him. A vice-admiral with the nose of
a hawk and the cold eyes of a long-dead fish spoke sharply.
    “We must insist on knowing how you