Deep Six (Clive Cussler Novel)

''Deep Six'' is an English-language adventure novel by Clive Cussler published in the United States by Simon & Schuster in 1984. This is the seventh book featuring the author's primary protagonist, Dirk Pitt.

Plot introduction

When a mysterious and extremely deadly poison spreads through the waters off the coast of Alaska killing everything it comes in contact with, including several scientists and members of the crew of a Coast Guard cutter, Dirk Pitt and his NUMA team are dispatched in an attempt to find the source of the poison. When a member of his team is killed by the poison, Pitt vows to take revenge on whoever is responsible for the poison outbreak. The trail leads him to a powerful and extremely wealthy Korean shipping company matriarch and her grandson, and while pursuing them, Pitt uncovers a plot that could lead to the fall of the government of the United States.

Plot

In 1966, the refitted liberty ship ''San Marino'' is on its way from San Francisco to Auckland, New Zealand. The ship is carrying more than eight million dollars' worth of titanium ingots as well as a mysterious passenger who goes by the name of Estelle Wallace. Wallace is actually Arta Casilighio, a former bank teller at the Beverly-Wilshire bank who embezzled more than $120,000 and is making her getaway. Unfortunately, a group of Korean seamen who came aboard as last-minute crew replacements have hijacked the ship and its cargo, and dispose of Wallace and the crew by paralyzing them with poison in their food and dropping them over the side into the depths of the ocean.

The story then flashes forward twenty-three years to the waters off of Augustine Island, Alaska where an extremely deadly poison is moving through the waters, killing everything it comes in contact with. The poison comes to the notice of the Coast Guard cutter ''Catawaba'' when it intercepts a derelict crab boat called the ''Amie Marie''. The men sent aboard to investigate discover that the entire crew has died horribly, bleeding from every orifice and their skin had turned black. The boarding party soon begins to exhibit symptoms themselves. The doctor sent aboard orders the captain of the ''Catawaba'' to quarantine the crab boat and calls off his symptoms as the poison overtakes him, hoping that this information will help others in their diagnosis.

It is later revealed that the symptoms of the mysterious poison are strikingly similar to those of a deadly biological weapon, called Nerve Agent S, developed by the Rocky Mountain Arsenal outside of Colorado as the ideal weapon for use on troops wearing gas masks and protective clothing. The agent clings to everything and is absorbed through the skin, resulting in almost immediate death. The weapon was eventually discontinued by the Army because it was as deadly to the troops deploying it as it was to the enemy. While en route to be buried in the Nevada desert, an entire boxcar carrying more than 1,000 gallons of Nerve Agent S disappeared.

Dirk Pitt and his friend, Assistant Projects Director Al Giordino are called away from their current project to assist the Environmental Protection Agency's Dr. Julie Mendoza in an effort to find the source of the poison in what is assumed to be a sunken ship. Pitt discovers that the liberty ship ''Pilottown'' is embedded into the shore of the island with only her stern exposed to the elements. They board her and discover the containers of the nerve agent, but while they are attempting to recover the barrels, the volcano on the island erupts, causing the barrels to shift. Dr. Mendoza is killed when her biohazard suit is punctured, exposing her to the poison. Pitt vows to get to the bottom of who was responsible for the poison being on the ship and to take his revenge for the death of Dr. Mendoza.

In his attempts to trace the history of the ''Pilottown'', Pitt discovers information on the wreck that leads him to the Alhambra Iron and Boiler Company in Charleston, South Carolina, and from there turns to NUMA computer expert Hiram Yaeger and St. Julien Perlmutter, a family friend and naval historian. They discover that the ''Pilottown'' has been part of a complicated web of bogus holding companies, insurance scams and piracy which saw her name changed several times, from ''San Marino'' to ''Belle Chase'', and finally to ''Pilottown''. Eventually, they tie the ship to Bougainville Maritime Lines, a powerful company owned by the ruthless and mysterious Madame Min Koryo Bougainville.

Bougainville and her grandson, Lee Tong, have entered into an audacious plan with the Soviet Union to engineer the kidnapping of the President of the United States, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate, the next three men in the line of succession

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