Cyclops

Cyclops (Dirk Pitt #8)

by Clive Cussler

PROLOGUE

March 9, 1918

Caribbean Sea

The Cyclops had less than one hour to live. In forty-eight minutes she would become a mass tomb for her 309 passengers and crew-- a tragedy unforeseen and unheralded by ominous premonitions, mocked by an empty sea and a diamond-clear sky. Even the seagulls that had haunted her wake for the past week darted and soared in languid indifference, their keen instincts dulled by the mild weather.

There was a slight breeze from the southeast that barely curled the American flag on her stern. At three-thirty in the morning, most of the off-duty crewmen and passengers were asleep. A few, unable to drift off under the oppressive heat of the trade winds, stood around on the upper deck, leaning over the railing and watching the ship's bow hiss and lift over the high rolling swells. The main surge of the sea seemed to be moving beneath the smooth surface, while massive forces were building in the depths below.

Inside the Cyclops' wheelhouse, Lieutenant John Church stared vacantly through one of the large circular ports. He had the midnight to 4 A.M. dog watch, and it was all he could do to stay awake. He vaguely noticed the increasing height of the waves, but as long as they remained wide-spaced and their slopes gentle he saw no reason to reduce speed.

Nudged by a friendly current, the heavily loaded collier was plodding along at only nine knots. Her machinery was badly in need of overhaul and even now she was steaming on just her port engine. Shortly after departing Rio de Janeiro, the starboard engine broke down and the chief engineer reported it could not be repaired until they reached port in Baltimore.

Lieutenant Church had worked his way up through the ranks to commissioned officer. He was a thin, prematurely gray-haired man a few months shy of thirty. He had been assigned to many different ships and had sailed around the world four times. But the Cyclops was the strangest vessel he'd ever encountered during his twelve years in the Navy. This was his first voyage on the eight-year-old vessel and it was not without its odd events.

Since leaving home port, a seaman who fell overboard was battered into pulp by the port propeller. Next came a collision with the cruiser Raleigh that caused minor damage to both ships. The brig was filled with five prisoners. One of them, convicted in the brutal murder of a shipmate, was being transported to the naval prison at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Outside the entrance to Rio Harbor, the ship came within a hair of running onto a reef, and when the executive officer accused the captain of endangering the ship by altering course, he was placed under arrest and confined to quarters. Finally, there was a malcontent crew, a problem-plagued starboard engine, and a captain who was drinking himself into oblivion. When Church summed up the luckless incidents, he felt as if he were standing watch over a disaster waiting to happen.

His gloomy reverie was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps behind him. He turned and stiffened as the captain came through the door of the wheelhouse.

Lieutenant Commander George Worley was a character straight out of Treasure Island. All that was missing was an eye patch and a pegleg. He was a bull of a man. His neck was almost nonexistent, his massive head seemed to erupt from his shoulders. The hands that hung at his sides were the largest Church had ever seen. They were as long and thick as a volume out of an encyclopedia. Never a stickler for Navy regulations, Worley's uniform aboard ship usually consisted of bedroom slippers, derby hat, and long john underwear. Church had never seen the captain in a dress uniform except when the Cyclops was in port and Worley went ashore on official business.

With merely a grunt of a greeting, Worley walked over and rapped the barometer with a beefy knuckle. He studied the needle and nodded.

"Not too bad," he said with a slight German accent. "Looks good for the next twenty-four hours. With luck it'll be a smooth sail, at least until we catch hell passing Cape Hatteras."

"Every ship catches hell off Cape Hatteras," said Church flatly.

Worley walked into the chart room and peered at the penciled line showing the Cyclops' course and approximate position.

"Alter course five degrees north," he said as he returned to the wheelhouse. "We'll skirt the Great Bahama Bank."

"We're already twenty miles west of the main channel," said Church.

"I have my reasons for avoiding the shipping lanes," Worley responded gruffly.

Church simply nodded at the helmsman, and the Cyclops came around. The slight alteration brought the swells running against her port bow and her motion changed. She began to roll heavily.

"I don't much care for the look of the sea," said Church. "The waves are getting a bit steep."

"Not uncommon in these waters," replied Worley. "We're nearing the area where the North Equatorial Current meets the Gulf Stream. I've seen the surface as flat as a desert dry lake, other times I've seen waves twenty feet high, nice easy rollers that slide under the keel."

Church started to say something, but paused, listening. The sound of metal scraping against metal rasped through the wheelhouse. Worley acted as though he hadn't heard anything, but Church walked to the rear bulkhead and looked out over the long cargo deck of the Cyclops.

She was a large ship for her day, with an overall length of 542 feet and a 65-foot beam. Built in Philadelphia in 1910, she operated with the Naval Auxiliary Service, Atlantic Fleet. Her seven cavernous holds could handle 10,500 tons of coal, but this trip she was carrying 11,000 tons of manganese. Her hull was settled deep in the water a good foot over her Plimsoll mark. To Church's mind the ship was dangerously overloaded.

Staring astern, Church could see the twenty-four coaling derricks looming through the darkness, their giant clamshell buckets secured for rough weather. He could also make out something else.

The deck amidships appeared to be lifting and dropping in unison with the swells as they passed under the keel.

"My God," he muttered, "the hull is bending with the sea."

Worley didn't bother to look. "Nothing to concern yourself over, son. She's used to a little stress."

"I've never seen a ship twist like this," Church persisted.

Worley dropped into a large wicker chair he kept on the bridge and propped his feet on the binnacle. "Son, no need to worry about the old Cyclops. She'll be sailing the seas long after you and me are gone."

Church's apprehension was not soothed by the captain's unconcern. If anything, his sense of foreboding deepened.

After Church turned over the next watch to a fellow officer, he left the bridge and stopped by the radio room to have a cup of coffee with the operator on duty. Sparks, as every wireless man aboard every ship at sea was called, looked up as he entered.

"Mornin', Lieutenant."

"Any interesting news from nearby vessels?"

Sparks lifted his headset from one ear. "Sorry?"

Church repeated the question.

"Only a couple of radiomen on a pair of merchant ships exchanging chess moves."

"You should join in to avoid the monotony."

"Checkers is my game," said Sparks.

"How close are those two merchantmen?"

"Their signals are pretty weak. . . probably a good hundred miles away."

Church straddled a chair and leaned his arms and chin on the backrest. "Give them a call and ask what sort of sea they're encountering."

Sparks gave a helpless shrug. "I can't."

"Your transmitter acting up?"

"She's fit as a sixteen-year-old Havana whore."

"I don't understand."

"Captain Worley's orders," answered Sparks. "When we left Rio, he called me to his quarters and said not to transmit any messages without his direct order before we dock in Baltimore."

"He give a reason?"

"No, sir."

"Damned odd."

"My hunch is it has something to do with that bigwig we took on as a passenger in Rio."

"The consul general?"

"I received my orders right after he came on board= Sparks broke off and pressed the headset to his ears. Then he began scribbling an incoming message on a pad of paper. After a few moments he turned, his face grim.

"A distress signal."

Church stood up. "What position?"

"Twenty miles southeast of the Anguilla Cays."

Church mentally calculated. "That puts them about fifty miles off our bow. What else?"

"Name of vessel, Crogan Castle. Prow stove in. Superstructure heavily damaged. Taking on water. Require immediate assistance."

"Prow stove in?" Church repeated in a puzzled tone. "From what?"

"They didn't say, Lieutenant."

Church started for the door. "I'll inform the captain. Tell the Crogan Castle we're coming at full steam."

Sparks's face took on a pained look. "Please, sir, I can't."

"Do it!" Church commanded. "I'll take full responsibility.'

He turned and ran down the alleyway and up the ladder to the wheelhouse. Worley was still sitting in the wicker chair, swaying with the roll of the ship. His spectacles were dipped low on his nose and he was reading a dog-eared Liberty magazine.

"Sparks has picked up an SOS," Church announced. "Less than fifty miles away. I ordered him to acknowledge the call and say we were altering course to assist."

Worley's eyes went wide and he launched himself out of the chair and clutched a startled Church by the upper arms. "Are you crazy?" he roared. "Who in hell gave you the authority to countermand my orders?"

Pain erupted in Church's arms. The viselike pressure from those huge hands felt as if it were squeezing his biceps into pulp. "Good God, Captain, we can't ignore another vessel in distress."

"We damn well can if I say so!"

Church was stunned at Worley's outburst. He could see the reddened, unfocused eyes and smell the breath reeking of whisky. "A basic rule of the sea," Church persisted. "We must render assistance."

"Are they sinking?"

"The message said `taking on water.' "

Worley shoved Church away. "The hell you say. Let the bastards man the pumps until their ass is saved by any ship but the Cyclops."

The helmsman and the duty officer looked on in amazed silence as Church and Worley faced each other with unblinking eyes, the atmosphere in the wheelhouse charged with tension. Any rift that was between them in the past weeks was hurled wide open.

The duty officer made a move as if to intervene. Worley twisted his head and snarled, "Keep to your business and mind the helm."

Church rubbed his bruised arms and glared at the captain. "I protest your refusal to respond to an SOS and I insist it be entered in the ship's log."

"I warn you

"I also wish it noted that you ordered the radio operator not to transmit."

"You're out of bounds, mister." Worley spoke coldly, his lips compressed in a tight line, his face bathed in sweat. "Consider yourself under arrest and confined to quarters."

"You arrest any more of your officers," Church snapped, his anger out of control, "and you'll have to run this jinx ship by yourself."

Suddenly, before Worley could reply, the Cyclops lurched downward into a deep trough between the swells. From instinct, honed by years at sea, everyone in the wheelhouse automatically grabbed at the nearest secure object to keep his footing. The hull plates groaned under the stress and they could hear several cracking noises.

"Mother of God," muttered the helmsman, his voice edged with panic.

"Shut up!" Worley growled as the Cyclops righted herself. "She's seen worse seas than this."

A sickening realization struck Church. "The Crogan Castle, the ship that sent the distress signal, said her prow was stove in and her superstructure damaged."

Worley stared at him. "So what?"

"Don't you see, she must have been struck by a giant, rogue wave."

"You talk like a crazy man. Go to your cabin, mister. I don't want to see your face until we reach port."

Church hesitated, his fists clenched. Then slowly his hands relaxed as he realized any further argument with Worley was a waste of breath. He turned without a word and left the wheelhouse.

He stepped onto the deck and stared out over the bow. The sea appeared deceptively mild. The waves had diminished to ten feet and no water was coming over the deck. He made his way aft and saw that the steam lines that ran the winches and auxiliary equipment were scraping against the bulwarks as the ship rose and fell with the long, slow swells.

Then Church went below and checked two of the ore holds, probing his flashlight at the heavy shorings and stanchions installed to keep the manganese cargo from shifting. They groaned and creaked under the stress, but they seemed firm and secure. He could not see any sign of trickling grit from the ship's motion.

Still, he felt uneasy, and he was tired. It took all his willpower to keep from heading to the snug confines of his bunk and gratefully closing his eyes to the grim set of problems surrounding the ship. One more inspection tour down to the engine room to see if any water was reported rising in the bilges. A trip that proved negative, seeming to confirm Worley's faith in the Cyclops.

As he was walking down a passageway toward the wardroom for a cup of coffee a cabin door opened and the American consul general to Brazil, Alfred Gottschalk, hesitated on the threshold, talking to someone inside. Church peered over Gottschalk's shoulder and saw the ship's doctor bent over a man lying in a bunk. The patient's face looked tired and yellow-skinned, a youngish face that belied the thick forest of white hair above. The eyes were open and reflected fear mingled with suffering and hardship, eyes that had seen too much. The scene was only one more strange element to be added to the voyage of the Cyclops.

As officer of the deck before the ship departed Rio de Janeiro, Church had observed a motor caravan arrive on the dock. The consul general had stepped out of a chauffeur-driven town car and directed the loading of his steamer trunks and suitcases. Then he looked up, taking in every detail of the Cyclops from her ungainly straight-up-and-down bow to the graceful curve of her champagne-glass stern. Despite his short, rotund, and almost comical frame, he radiated that indefinable air of someone accustomed to the upper rungs of authority. He wore his silver-yellow hair cropped excessively short, Prussian style. His narrow eyebrows very nearly matched his clipped moustache.

The second vehicle in the caravan was an ambulance. Church watched as a figure on a stretcher was lifted out and carried on board, but he failed to discern any features because of heavy mosquito netting that covered the face. Though the person on the stretcher was obviously part of his entourage, Gottschalk took little notice, turning his attention instead to the chain-drive Mack truck that brought up the rear.

He gazed anxiously as a large oblong crate was hoisted in the air by one of the ship's loading booms and swung into the forward cargo compartment. As if on cue, Worley appeared and personally supervised the battening down of the hatch. Then he greeted Gottschalk and escorted him to his quarters. Almost immediately, the mooring lines were cast off and the ship got under way and was heading out to sea through the harbor entrance.

Gottschalk turned and noticed Church standing in the passageway. He stepped from the cabin and closed the door behind him, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Something I can help you with, Lieutenant. . ."

"Church, sir. I was just finishing an inspection of the ship and heading for the wardroom for a cup of coffee. Would you care to join me?"

A faint expression of relief passed over the consul general's face and he smiled. "Might as well. I can never sleep more than a few hours at a stretch. Drives my wife crazy."

"She remain in Rio this trip?"

"No, I sent her on ahead to our home in Maryland. I terminated my assignment in Brazil. I hope to spend the rest of my State Department service in Washington."

Gottschalk appeared unduly nervous to Church. His eyes darted up and down the passageway, and he constantly dabbed a linen handkerchief at his small mouth. He took Church by the arm.

"Before we have coffee, would you be so kind, Lieutenant, as to escort me to the baggage cargo hold?"

Church stared at him. "Yes, sir, if you wish."

"Thank you," said Gottschalk. "I need something from one of my trunks."

If Church thought the request unusual, he said nothing, simply nodded and started off toward the forward part of the ship with the fat little consul general huffing in his wake. They made their way topside and walked along the runway leading from the aft deckhouses toward the forecastle, passing under the bridge superstructure awkwardly suspended on steel stiltlike stanchions. The steaming light, suspended between the two forward masts that formed a support for the skeletal grid connecting the coaling derricks, cast a weird glow that was reflected by the eerie radiance of the approaching swells.

Stopping at a hatch, Church undogged the latches and motioned Gottschalk down a ladder, illuminating the way with his flashlight. When they reached the bottom deck of the cargo hold, Church found the switch and flicked on the overhead lights, which lit the area with an unearthly yellow glow.

Gottschalk shouldered past Church and walked directly to the crate, which was secured by chains whose end links were padlocked into eyebolts protruding from the deck. He stood there for a few moments, a reverent expression on his face as he stared at it, his thoughts wandering in another place, another time.

Church studied the crate up close for the first time. There were no markings on the stout wooden sides. He judged its measurements at nine feet long by three feet high by four feet wide. He couldn't begin to guess the weight, but knew the contents were heavy. He recalled how the winch had strained when it hoisted the crate on board. Curiosity overcame his mask of unconcern.

"Mind if I ask what's inside?"

Gottschalk's gaze remained on the crate. "An archeological artifact on its way to a museum," he said vaguely.

"Must be valuable," Church probed.

Gottschalk did not answer. Something along the edge of the lid struck his eye. He pulled out a pair of reading spectacles and peered through the lenses. His hands trembled and his body stiffened.

"It's been opened!" he gasped.

"Not possible," said Church. "The top is so tightly secured by chains that the links have made indentations on the edges of the wood."

"But look here," he said, pointing. "You can see the pry marks where the lid was forced up."

"Those scratches were probably caused when the crate was sealed."

"They were not there when I checked the crate two days ago," said Gottschalk firmly. "Someone in your crew had tampered with it."

"You're unduly concerned. What crew member would have any interest in an old artifact that must weigh at least two tons? Besides, who else but you has the key to the padlocks?"

Gottschalk dropped to his knees and jerked one of the locks. The shackle came off in his hand. Instead of steel, it was carved from wood. He looked frightened now. As if hypnotized, he slowly rose, looked wildly about the cargo compartment, and uttered one word.

"Zanona."

It was as if he triggered a nightmare. The next sixty seconds were locked in horror. The murder of the consul general happened so quickly that Church could only stand frozen in shock, his mind uncomprehending of what his eyes witnessed.

A figure leaped from the shadows onto the top of the crate. He was dressed in the uniform of a Navy seaman, but there was no denying the racial characteristics of his coarse, straight black hair, the prominent cheekbones, the unusually dark, expressionless eyes.

Without uttering a sound, the South American Indian plunged a spearlike shaft through Gottschalk's chest until the barbed point protruded nearly a foot beyond the shoulder blades. The consul general did not immediately fall. He slowly turned his head and stared at Church, his eyes wide and devoid of recognition. He tried to say something, but no words came out, only a sickening, gurgling kind of cough that turned his lips and chin red. As he began to sag the Indian put a foot on his chest and yanked out the spear.

Church had never seen the assassin before. The Indian was not one of the Cyclops' crew and could only be a stowaway. There was no malevolence in the brown face, no anger or hate, only an inscrutable expression of total blankness. He grasped the spear almost negligently and silently jumped from the crate.

Church braced himself for the onslaught. He deftly sidestepped the spear's thrust and hurled the flashlight at the Indian's face. There was a soft thud as the metal tube smashed into the right jaw, breaking the bone and loosening several teeth. Then he lashed out with his fist and struck the Indian's throat. The spear dropped onto the deck and Church snatched up the wooden shaft and lifted it above his head.

Suddenly, the world inside the cargo compartment went mad and Church found himself fighting to keep his balance as the deck canted nearly sixty degrees. He somehow kept his footing, running downhill with gravity until he reached the slanting forward bulkhead. The Indian's inert body rolled after him, coming to rest at his feet. Then he watched in helpless terror as the crate, unbound by its locks, hurtled across the deck, crushing the Indian and pinning Church's legs against the steel wall. The impact caused the lid to twist half off the crate, revealing the contents.

Church dazedly stared inside. The incredible sight that met his eyes under the flickering overhead lights was the final image burned into his mind during the fractional seconds that separated him from death.

In the wheelhouse, Captain Worley was witnessing an even more awesome sight. It was as though the Cyclops had abruptly dropped into a fathomless hole. Her bow pitched sharply into an immense trough and her stern rose steeply into the air until her propellers came clear of the water. Through the gloom ahead, the Cyclops' steaming lights reflected on a seething black wall that rose up and blotted out the stars.

Deep in the bowels of the cargo holds came a dreadful rumbling that felt and sounded like an earthquake, causing the entire ship to shudder from stem to stern. Worley never had time to voice the alarm that flashed through his mind. The shorings had given way and the shifting manganese ore increased the Cyclops' downward momentum.

The helmsman stared out the bridge port in mute astonishment as the towering column, the height of a ten-story building, roared toward them with the speed of an avalanche. The top half crested and curled under. A million tons of water crashed savagely into the forward part of the ship, completely inundating the bow and superstructure. The doors to the bridge wings shattered and water shot into the wheelhouse. Worley gripped the counter railing, his paralyzed mind unable to visualize the inevitable.

The wave swept over the ship. The entire bow section twisted away as steel beams snapped and the keel buckled. The heavy riveted hull plates were ripped away as if they were paper. The Cyclops plunged deeper under the immense pressure of the wave. Her propellers bit the water again and helped impel her into the waiting depths. The Cyclops could not come back.

She kept on going, down, down, until her shattered hull and the people it imprisoned fell against the restless sands of the sea floor below, leaving only a flight of bewildered seagulls to mark her fateful passage.

<1>THE PROSPERTEER

October 10, 1989

Key West, Florida

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The blimp Hung motionless in the tropical air, poised and tranquil, like a fish suspended in an aquarium. Her bow nudged against a yellow mooring mast as she balanced daintily on a single landing wheel. She was a tired-looking old airship-- her once silver skin had wrinkled and turned white and was spotted by numerous patches. The gondola, the control car that hung beneath her belly, wore an antique boat-like look, and its glass windows were yellowed with age. Only her two 200-horsepower Wright Whirlwind engines appeared new, having been carefully restored to pristine condition.

Unlike her younger sister ships that plied the skies above football stadiums, her gas-tight envelope was made from aluminum with riveted seams instead of rubber-coated polyester and was supported by twelve circular frames like the back of a fish. Her cigar shape was 149 feet in length and held 200,000 cubic feet of helium, and if no headwinds attacked her rotund nose, she could barrel through the clouds at sixty-two miles an hour. Her original designation was ZMC-2, Zeppelin Metal Clad Number Two, and she had been constructed in Detroit and turned over to the United States Navy in 1929. Unlike most airships with four massive stabilizing fins, she sported eight small fins on her tapered tail. Very advanced for her era, she had given solid and dependable service until 1942, when she was dismantled and forgotten.

For forty-seven years the ZMC-2 languished in an abandoned hangar along the runway of a deserted naval air station near Key West, Florida. Then in 1988, the property was sold by the government to a financial conglomerate headed by a wealthy publisher, Raymond LeBaron, who intended to develop it as a resort.

Shortly after arriving from his corporate headquarters in Chicago to inspect the newly purchased naval base, LeBaron stumbled onto the dusty and corroded remains of the ZMC-2 and became intrigued. Charging it off to promotion, he had the old lighter-than-air craft reassembled and the engines rebuilt, calling her the Prosperteer after the business magazine that was the base of his financial empire, and emblazoning the name in huge red letters on the side of the envelope.

LeBaron learned to fly the Prosperteer, mastering the fickle moods of the craft and the constant adjustments required to maintain steady flight under the capricious nature of the wind. There was no autopilot to relieve the chore of dipping the bow against a sudden gust and lifting it when the breeze slackened. The near-neutral buoyancy varied greatly with the atmosphere. Residue from a light rain could add hundreds of pounds to the blimp's vast skin, decreasing her ability to lift, while dry air blowing down from the northwest forced the pilot to fight the craft's insistence on rising to an undesired altitude.

LeBaron reveled in the challenge. The exhilaration of second guessing the moods of the antique gas bag and wrestling with her aerodynamic whims far exceeded any enjoyment he received from flying any of the five jet aircraft belonging to his corporate holdings. He sneaked away from the boardroom at every opportunity to travel to Key West so he could island-hop around the Caribbean. The Prosperteer soon became a familiar sight over the Bahama Islands. A native worker, laboring in a sugarcane field, looked up at the blimp and promptly described her as a "little pig running backwards."

LeBaron, however, like most entrepreneurs of the power elite, suffered from a restless mind and a driving urge to tackle a new project lying over the next hill. After nearly a year his interest in the old blimp began to wane.

Then one evening in a waterfront saloon he met an old beach rat by the name of Buck Caesar, who operated a backwater salvage company with the grandiloquent title "Exotic Artifact Ventures, Inc."

During a conversation over several rounds of iced rum, Caesar spoke the magic word that has fired the human mind into insanity for five thousand years and probably caused more grief than half the wars-- treasure.

After listening to Caesar spin tales of Spanish galleons littering the waters of the Caribbean, their cargoes of gold and silver mingled with the coral, even a shrewd financial manipulator with the acute business sense of LeBaron was hooked. With a handshake they formed a partnership.

LeBaron's interest in the Prosperteer was revived. The blimp made a perfect platform for spotting potential shipwreck sites from the air. Airplanes moved too fast for aerial survey, while helicopters had a limited flying time and churned up the surface of the water with wash from their rotor blades. The blimp could remain airborne for two days and cruise at a walk. From an altitude of 400 feet, the straight lines of a man-made object could be detected by a sharp eye a hundred feet beneath a calm and clear sea.

Dawn was crawling over the Florida Straits as the ten-man ground crew assembled around the Prosperteer and began a preflight inspection. The new sun caught the huge envelope covered by morning dew, giving off an iridescent effect like that from a soap bubble. The blimp stood in the center of a concrete runway whose expansion cracks were lined with weeds. A slight breeze blew in from the straits and she swung around the mooring mast until her bulbous nose faced into it.

Most of the ground crew were young, deeply tanned, and casually dressed in an assortment of shorts, bathing suits, and denim cutoffs. They took scant notice as a Cadillac stretch limousine drove across the runway and stopped at the large truck that served as the blimp's repair shop, crew chief's office, and communications room.

The chauffeur opened the door and LeBaron unlimbered from the rear seat, followed by Buck Caesar, who immediately made for the blimp's gondola with a roll of nautical charts tucked under one arm. LeBaron, looking a very trim and healthy sixty-five, towered above everyone at six foot seven. His eyes were the color of light oak, the graying hair combed just so, and he possessed the distant, preoccupied gaze of a man whose thoughts were several hours in the future.

He bent down and spoke for a few moments to an attractive woman who leaned from the car. He kissed her lightly on the cheek, closed the car door, and began walking toward the Prosperteer.

The crew chief, a studious-looking man wearing a spotless white shop coat, came over and shook LeBaron's outstretched hand. "Fuel tanks are topped off, Mr. LeBaron. The preflight check list is completed."

"How's the buoyancy?"

"You'll have to adjust for an extra five hundred pounds from the dampness."

LeBaron nodded thoughtfully. "She'll lighten in the heat of the day."

"The controls should feel more responsive. The elevator cables were showing signs of rust, so I had them replaced."

"What's the weather look like?"

"Low scattered clouds most of the day. Little chance of rain. You'll be bucking a five-mile-an-hour head wind from the southeast on the way out."

"And a tail wind on the return trip. I prefer that."

"Same radio frequency as the last trip?"

"Yes, we'll report our position and condition, using normal voice communication, every half hour. If we spot a promising target we'll transmit in code."

The crew chief nodded. "Understood."

Without further conversation LeBaron climbed the ladder to the gondola and settled in the pilot's seat. He was joined by his copilot, Joe Cavilla, a sixty-year-old, sad-eyed, dour individual who seldom opened his mouth except to yawn or sneeze. His family had immigrated to America from Brazil when he was sixteen and he had joined the Navy, flying blimps until the last airship unit was formally disbanded in 1964. Cavilla had simply showed up one day, impressed LeBaron with his expertise in lighter-than-air craft, and was hired.

The third member of the crew was Buck Caesar. He wore a constant smile on a gentle, middle-aged face that had the texture of cowhide, but his gaze was shrewd, and the body held the firmness of boxer. He sat hunched over a small table contemplating his charts, drawing a series of squares near a sector of the Bahama Channel.

Blue smoke burst from the exhaust stacks as LeBaron turned over the engines. The ground crew untied a number of canvas sacks containing ballast shot from the gondola. One crewman, the "butterfly catcher," held up a windsock on a long pole so LeBaron could note the exact direction of the wind.

LeBaron gave a hand signal to the crew chief. A wooden chock was pulled from the landing wheel, the nose coupling was released from the mooring mast, and the men holding the bow ropes heaved to one side and let go. When the airship was free and clear of the mast, LeBaron eased the throttles forward and spun the large elevator wheel next to his seat. The Prosperteer pointed her comic-opera snout upward at a fifty-degree angle and slowly drove into the sky.

The ground crew watched until the huge airship gradually faded from view over the blue-green waters of the straits. Then their interest turned briefly to the limousine and the vague feminine shape behind the tinted windows.

Jessie LeBaron shared her husband's passion for outdoor adventure, but she was an orderly woman, who preferred organizing charity balls and political fund raisers over a time-wasting hunt for dubious treasure. Vibrant and bouncy, with a mouth that had a repertory of a dozen different smiles, she was six months past fifty but looked closer to thirty-seven. Jessie was slightly heavy-bodied but firm, her facial skin was creamy smooth, and she had allowed her hair to turn a natural salt-and-pepper. The eyes were large and dark and bore no trace of the blank look usually left by plastic surgery.

When she could no longer see the blimp, Jessie spoke into the limousine's intercom. "Angelo, please drive back to the hotel."

The chauffeur, a somber Cuban with the etched face of a postage stamp engraving, touched two fingers to the brim of his cap and nodded.

The ground crew watched the long Cadillac turn and head through the deserted front gate of the former naval base. Then someone produced a volleyball. Quickly they drew out the boundaries and set up a net. After choosing up sides, they began batting the ball back and forth to fight the boredom of waiting.

Inside the air-conditioned truck, the crew chief and a radio operator acknowledged and recorded the reports from the blimp. LeBaron religiously transmitted every thirty minutes, never varying more than a few seconds, describing his approximate position, any changes in weather, and vessels passing below.

Then, at half past two in the afternoon, the reports stopped. The radio operator tried to raise the Prosperteer, but there was no response. Five o'clock came and went with still no word. Outside, the ground crew wearily ceased their play and crowded around the door to the radio compartment as the uneasiness inside began to grow. At six o'clock, with no sign of the blimp over the sea, the crew chief put in a call to the Coast Guard.

What no one knew, or possibly suspected, was that Raymond LeBaron and his friends on board the Prosperteer had vanished in a mystery that went far beyond any mere treasure hunt.

<<2>>

Ten days later, the President of the United. States stared pensively out the window of his limousine at the passing landscape and idly drummed his fingers on one knee. His eyes didn't see the picturesque estates amid the horse country of Potomac, Maryland. He took scant notice of the sun gleaming on the coats of the Thoroughbreds roaming the rolling pastures. The images that reflected in his mind coursed around the strange events that had literally hurled him into the White House.

As the Vice President he was sworn into the nation's highest office when his predecessor was forced to resign after admitting to a mental illness. Mercifully, the news media did not launch a full-blown investigation. Of course there were the routine interviews with White House aides, congressional leaders, and noted psychiatrists, but nothing smelling of intrigue or conspiracy emerged. The former President left Washington and retired to his farm in New Mexico, still respected with great sympathy from the public, and the truth remained locked in the minds of a very few.

The new Chief Executive was an energetic man who stood slightly over six feet and weighed a solid two hundred pounds. His face was square jawed, with firm features and a brow that was usually furrowed in a thoughtful frown, yet his intense gray eyes could be deceptively limpid. The silver hair was always neatly trimmed and parted on the right side in the homespun style of a Kansas banker.

He was not handsome or flamboyant in the eyes of the public, but emitted an appealing style and charm. Though he was a professional politician, he somewhat naively viewed the government as a giant team with himself as the coach who sent in plays during the game. Highly regarded as a mover and shaker, he surrounded himself with a cabinet and staff of gifted men and women who made every effort to work in harmony with Congress rather than enlisting a band of cronies who were more concerned with fortifying their personal power base.

His thoughts slowly focused on the local scenery as his Secret Service driver slowed down and turned off River Road North through a large stone gate bordered by a white rail fence. A uniformed security guard and a Secret Service agent wearing the standard dark sunglasses and business suit stepped from the gatehouse. They simply peered in the car and nodded in recognition. The agent spoke into a small radio transmitter strapped to his wrist like a watch.

"The Boss is on his way."

The limousine rolled up the tree-lined circular drive of the Congressional Country Club, past the tennis courts on the left teeming with the staring wives of the members, and eased to a stop under the portico of the clubhouse.

Elmer Hoskins, the advance man, stepped forward and opened the rear door. "Looks like a good day for golf, Mr. President."

"My game couldn't get worse if we were standing in snow," the President said, smiling.

"I wish I could shoot in the low eighties."

"So do I," said the President as he followed Hoskins around the side of the clubhouse and down to the pro shop. "I've added five strokes to my score since taking over the Oval Office."

"Still, not bad for someone who only plays once a week."

"That and the fact it becomes increasingly difficult to keep my mind on the game."

The club pro came over and shook his hand. "Reggie has your clubs and is waiting on the first tee."

The President nodded and they climbed into a golf cart and set off over a path that curved around a large pond and onto one of the longest golf courses in the nation. Reggie Salazar, a short, wiry Hispanic, stood leaning on a huge leather bag packed with golf clubs that came up to his chest.

Salazar's appearance was deceiving. Like a small Andes Mountains burro, he could lug a fifty-pound bag of irons around eighteen holes without losing a breath or showing a drop of sweat. When he was only a boy of thirteen he had carried his ailing mother in his arms with a three-year-old sister strapped to his back across the California/ Baja border thirty miles to San Diego. After the illegal alien amnesty was granted in 1985 he worked around golf courses, becoming a top caddy on the professional tour. He was a genius at learning the rhythm of a course, claiming it spoke to him, and unerringly picking the right club for a difficult shot. Salazar was also a wit and a philosopher, blurting adages that would have made Casey Stengel envious. The President had drawn him in a congressional tournament five years before and they became good friends.

Salazar always dressed like a field laborer-- denim jeans, western shirt, GI boots, and a rancher's wide-- brimmed straw hat. It was his trademark.

"Saludos, Mr. President," he greeted in border English, his dark coffee-brown eyes glistening. "Do you wish to walk or ride the cart?"

The President pressed Salazar's outstretched hand. "I could use the exercise, so let's walk for a while and maybe ride the back nine."

He teed off and hit a lofting ball with a slight hook that stopped rolling 180 yards up and near the border of the fairway. As he strolled from the tee the problems of running the country melted away and his mind began planning the next shot.

He played in silence until he dropped his putt in the cup for a par. Then he relaxed and handed his putter to Salazar. "Well, Reggie, any suggestions for dealing with Capitol Hill?"

"Too many black ants," Salazar replied with an elastic grin.

"Black ants?"

"Everyone wear dark suits and run crazy. All they make is paper and wave tongues. Me, I'd write law saying congresspeople could only meet every other year. That way they'd cause less trouble."

The President laughed. "I can think of at least two hundred million voters who would applaud your idea."

They continued along the course, followed at a discreet distance by two Secret Service agents in a golf cart while at least a dozen others prowled the course grounds. The banter remained cheerful as the President's game went smoothly. After he retrieved the ball from the cup on the ninth green, his score tallied thirty-nine. He considered it a minor triumph.

"Let's take a break before we attack the back nine," said the President. "I'm going to celebrate with a beer. Care to join me?"

"No, thank you, sir. I'll use the time to clean grass and dirt from your clubs."

The President handed him the putter. "Suit yourself. But I must insist you join me for a drink after we finish the eighteenth."

Salazar beamed like a lighthouse. "An honor, Mr. President." Then he trotted off toward the caddy shack.

Twenty minutes later, after returning a call from his chief of staff and downing a bottle of Coors, the President left the clubhouse and joined Salazar, who was sitting slouched in a golf cart on the tenth tee, the wide brim of his straw hat pulled low over his forehead. His hands hung loosely draped on the steering wheel and were now encased in a pair of leather work gloves.

"Well, let's see if I can break eighty," said the President, his eyes glistening in anticipation of a good game.

Salazar said nothing and simply held out a driver.

The President took the club and looked at it, puzzled. "This is a short hole. Don't you think a number three wood should do the job?"

Staring at the ground, the hat hiding any facial expression, Salazar silently shook his head.

"You know best," the President said agreeably. He approached the ball, flexed his hands on the club, arched into a back swing, and brought the head down gracefully but entered into a rather awkward follow-through. The ball sailed straight over the fairway and landed a considerable distance beyond the green.

A perplexed expression spread across the President's face as he retrieved his tee and climbed in the seat of the electric cart. "That's the first time I've ever see you call the wrong club."

The caddy did not reply. He pressed the battery pedal and steered the cart toward the tenth green. About halfway down the fairway he reached over and placed a small package on the dashboard shelf directly in front of the President.

"Bringing along a snack in case you get hungry?" asked the President good-naturedly.

"No, sir, it's a bomb."

The President's eyebrows pinched a fraction in irritation. "Not a funny joke, Reggie--"

His words suddenly choked off as the straw hat rose and he found himself staring into the indigo-blue eyes of a total stranger.

<<3>>

"Please keep your arms in their present position," said the stranger conversationally. "I am aware of the hand signal you were advised to give your Secret Service people if you thought your life was endangered."

The President sat like a dead tree, disbelieving, more curious than afraid. He couldn't trust himself to speak at first, to assemble the right words. His eyes remained locked on the package.

"A stupid act," he said finally. "You won't live to enjoy it."

"This is not an assassination. You will not be harmed if you follow my instructions. Do you accept that?"

"You've got guts, mister."

The stranger ignored the remark and kept talking in the tone of a schoolteacher reciting class rules of conduct. "The bomb is a fragmentation type that will shred any flesh and bone within twenty yards. If you attempt to alert your bodyguards I will detonate it with an electronic control strapped to my wrist. Please continue your golf game as if nothing is out of the ordinary"

He stopped the cart several feet from the ball, stepped to the grass, and glanced warily at the Secret Service agents, satisfying himself that they appeared more intent on scanning the woods around the course. Then he reached in the bag and pulled out a six iron.

"It's obvious you don't know crap about golf," said the President, mildly pleased at gaining a small measure of control. "This calls for a chip shot. Hand me a nine iron."

The intruder obliged and stood by while the President chipped onto the green and putted into the cup. When they set off for the next tee, he studied the man seated beside him.

The few strands of gray hair that strayed beneath the straw hat and the lines bordering the eyes revealed an age in the late fifties. The body was slender, almost frail, the hips slim, a good match for Reggie Salazar except this man was a good three inches taller. The facial features were narrow and vaguely Scandinavian. The voice was educated, the cool manner and the squared shoulders suggested someone who was used to authority, yet there was no hint of viciousness or evil.

"I get the crazy impression," said the President calmly, "that you staged this intrusion to make a point."

"Not so crazy. You're very astute. But I would expect no less from a man with your power."

"Who the hell are you?"

"For the sake of conversation call me Joe. And I'll save you asking what this is all about as soon as we reach the tee. There is a restroom there." He paused and removed a folder from inside his shirt, sliding it across the seat to the President. "Enter and quickly scan the contents. Take no more than eight minutes. Linger beyond that time and you might arouse the suspicions of your bodyguards. I needn't describe the consequences."

The electric cart slowly eased to a halt. Without a word the President entered the restroom, sat down on the john, and began reading. Precisely eight minutes later he came out, his face a mask of confusion.

"What kind of insane trick have you hatched?"

"No trick."

"I don't understand why you went to such elaborate lengths to force me to read comic-book science fiction."

"Not fiction."

"Then it has to be some sort of con job."

"The Jersey Colony exists," said Joe patiently.

"Yes, and so does Atlantis."

Joe smiled wryly. "You've just been inducted into a very exclusive club. You're only the second President ever to be briefed on the project. Now I suggest you tee off and I'll flesh out the picture as you continue playing around the course. It won't be a complete picture because there is too little time. Also, some details are not necessary for you to know."

"First, one question. You owe me that."

"All right."

"Reggie Salazar?"

"Sleeping soundly in the caddy shack."

"God help you if you're lying."

"Which club?" Joe asked blithely.

"A short hole. Give me a four iron."

The President swung mechanically, but the ball flew straight and true, landing and rolling to within ten feet of the cup. He tossed the club at Joe and sat heavily in the cart, waiting.

"Well, then. . ." Joe began as he accelerated toward the green. "In 1963, only two months before his death, President Kennedy met with a group of nine men at his home in Hyannis Port who proposed a highly secret leapfrog project to be developed behind the scenes of the fledgling man-in-space program. They were an `inner core' of brilliant young scientists, corporate businessmen, engineers, and politicians who had achieved extraordinary success in their respective fields. Kennedy bought their idea and went so far as to launch a government agency that acted as a front to siphon federal tax money for what was to be code-named Jersey Colony. The pot was also sweetened by the businessmen, who set up a fund to match the government dollar for dollar. Research facilities were created in existing buildings, usually old warehouses, scattered around the country. Millions were saved in start-up costs, while eliminating questions by the curious over new construction of one vast development center."

"How was the operation kept secret?" the President asked. "Surely there were leaks."

Joe shrugged. "A simple technique. The research teams had their own pet projects. Each worked at a different location. The old act of one hand not knowing what the other was doing. The hardware was farmed out to small manufacturers. It was that elementary. The difficult part was coordinating the efforts under NASA's nose without letting their people know what was going on. So phony military officers were moved into the space centers at Cape Canaveral and

Houston, also one at the Pentagon to backstop any embarrassing probes."

"Are you saying the Defense Department knows nothing of this?"

Joe smiled. "The easiest part. One member of the `inner core' was a high-ranking staff officer, whose name is of no importance to you. He had no problem burying another military mission in the labyrinth of the Pentagon."

Joe paused as they pulled up beside the ball. The President played another shot as if he were sleepwalking. He returned to the cart and stared at Joe.

"Doesn't seem possible NASA could be so completely hoodwinked."

"Again, one of the Space Administration's key directors belonged to the `inner core.' His vision was also that of a permanent base with limitless opportunity instead of focusing on a few temporary manned landings on the lunar surface. But he realized NASA couldn't do two complicated and expensive programs at the same time, so he became a member of the Jersey Colony. The project was kept secret so there would be no interference from the Executive Office, Congress, or the military. As things turned out, it was a wise decision."

"And the bottom line is that the United States has a solid foot on the moon."

Joe nodded solemnly. "Yes, Mr. President, that is correct."

The President could not fully comprehend the enormity of the concept. "Incredible that a project so vast could be carried off behind an impenetrable curtain of security, unknown and undiscovered for twenty-six years."

Joe stared down the fairway. "It would take me a month to describe the problems, the setbacks, and the tragedies that were suffered. The scientific and engineering breakthroughs in developing a hydrogen reduction process for making water, an oxygen-extraction apparatus, and a power-generating plant whose turbine is driven by liquid nitrogen. The accumulation of materials and equipment launched into designated orbit by a private space agency sponsored by the `inner core.' The construction of a lunar transfer vehicle designed to ferry it all from earth orbit to the Jersey Colony."

"And this was done under the nose of our entire space program?"

"What was advertised as large communication satellites were disguised sections of the lunar transfer vehicle, each containing a man in an internal capsule. I won't go into the ten years of planning for that moment or the remarkable complexity of their linkup with each other and one of our abandoned space laboratories that was used as a base for the vehicle's assembly. Or the breakthrough in designing a lightweight, efficient solar electric engine using oxygen as the propulsion fuel. But the job was accomplished."

Joe stopped to allow the President to hit another shot. "Then it was a matter of gathering up the life-support systems and supplies already sent into orbit and transporting all of it, actually towing it like a tugboat, to the predetermined site on the moon. Even an old Soviet orbiting laboratory and any useful piece of space junk were pulled to the Jersey Colony. From the beginning, it's been a no-frills operation, the pioneering trek of man from his home on earth, the most important evolutionary step since the first fish struggled onto land over 300 million years ago. But by God, we did it. As we sit here and talk ten men are living and working in a hostile environment 240,000 miles away."

As Joe spoke his eyes took on the look of a messiah. Then the vision faded and he glanced at his watch. "We'd better hurry along before the Secret Service wonders why we're lagging. Anyway, that's the gist of it. I'll try to answer your questions while you play"

The President stared at him in awe. "Jesus," he groaned. "I don't think I can absorb all this."

"My apologies for throwing so much at you in so short a time," said Joe swiftly. "But it was necessary."

"Where exactly on the moon is this Jersey Colony?"

"After studying the photographs from the Lunar Orbiter probes and Apollo missions, we detected a geyser of vapor issuing from a volcanic region in the southern hemisphere of the moon's far side. Closer examination showed it to be a large cavern, perfect shelter for locating the initial installation."

"You said ten men are up there?"

"Yes."

"What about rotation, replacements?"

"No rotation."

"God, that means the original crew who assembled the lunar transport have been in space six years."

"That's true," acknowledged Joe. "One died and seven were added as the base was expanded to support more life."

"What about their families?"

"All bachelors. All knew and accepted the hardship and risk."

"You say I'm only the second President to learn of the project?"

"That's correct."

"Not allowing the nation's Chief Executive to share in the project is an insult to the office."

Joe's dark blue eyes deepened even more. He stared at the President with stern malice. "Presidents are political animals. Votes become more precious than treasure. Nixon might have used the Jersey Colony as a smokescreen to bail himself out of Watergate. Same with Carter and the Iranian hostage fiasco. Reagan to enhance his image while lording it over the Russians. What's even more deplorable is the thought of what Congress would do with the project, the partisan politics that would come into play as debate raged to no good purpose over whether the money would be better spent on defense or feeding the poor. I love my country, Mr. President, and consider myself a better patriot than most, but I no longer have any faith in the government."

"You took the people's tax dollars."

"Which will be repaid with interest from scientific benefits. But do not forget, private individuals and their corporations contributed half the money, and, I might add, without any thought of profit or personal gain. Defense and space contractors cannot make that claim."

The President did not argue. He quietly set his ball on a tee and socked the ball toward the eighteenth green.

"If you distrust Presidents so much," he said bitterly, "why did you drop out of the heavens to tell me all this?"

"We may have a problem." Joe slipped a photograph from the back of the folder and held it up. "Through our connections I've obtained a picture taken from an Air Force stealth aircraft making surveillance flights over Cuba."

The President knew better than to ask how it came to be in Joe's hands. "So what am I looking for?"

"Please study the area above the northern coast of the island and below the Florida Keys."

The President took a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket and peered at the image in the photo. "Looks like the Goodyear blimp."

"No, it's the Prosperteer, an old airship belonging to Raymond LeBaron."

"I thought he was lost over the Caribbean two weeks ago."

"Ten days to be exact, along with the blimp and two crewmen."

"Then this photo was taken before he disappeared."

"No, the film came off the aircraft only eight hours ago."

"Then LeBaron must be alive."

"I'd like to think so, but all attempts to raise the Prosperteer by radio have gone unanswered."

"What's LeBaron's connection with the Jersey Colony?"

"He was a member of the `inner core.' "

The President leaned close. "And you, Joe, are you one of the original nine men who conceived the project?"

Joe didn't answer. He didn't have to. The President, staring at him, knew without a doubt.

Satisfied, he sat back and relaxed. "Okay, so what's your problem?"

"In ten days the Soviets will take their newest heavy-lift launch vehicle out of the barn and send it into space with a manned lunar lander that's six times the size and weight of the module used by our astronauts during the Apollo program. You know the details from CIA intelligence reports."

"I've been briefed on their lunar mission," the President agreed.

"And you're also aware that over the past two years they've sent three unmanned probes in orbit around the moon to survey and photograph landing sites. The third and last crashed onto the moon's surface. The second had an engine malfunction and its fuel exploded. The first probe, however, performed successfully, at least in the beginning. It circled the moon twelve times. Then something went wrong. After returning to earth orbit prior to reentry it suddenly refused all commands from the ground. For the next eighteen months, Soviet space controllers worked at bringing the craft down intact. Whether or not they were able to retrieve its visual data, we have no way of knowing. Finally, they managed to fire the retro-rockets. But instead of Siberia, their lunar probe, Selenos 4, landed in the Caribbean Sea."

"What has this to do with LeBaron?"

"He went searching for the Soviet moon probe."

A doubtful look crossed the President's face. "According to CIA reports, the Russians retrieved the craft in deep water off Cuba."

"A smokescreen. They even put on a good show of raising the craft. But in reality, they were never able to find it."

"And your people think they know where it lies?"

"We have a site pinpointed, yes."

"Why would you want to beat the Russians out of a few pictures of the moon? There are thousands of photos available to anybody who wants to study them."

"Those were all taken before Jersey Colony was established. The new Russian survey will no doubt reveal the location."

"What harm could it do?"

"I believe that if the Kremlin discovers the truth, the USSR's first mission to the moon will be to attack, capture our colony, and use it for their own purposes."

"I don't buy that. The Kremlin would be laying their entire space program open for retaliation by our side."

"You forget, Mr. President, our lunar project is blanketed in secrecy. No one can charge the Russians with stealing something that isn't supposed to exist."

"You're stabbing in the dark," the President said sharply.

Joe's eyes hardened. "No matter. Our astronauts were the first to step on the lunar surface. We were the first to colonize it. The moon belongs to the United States and we shall fight any intrusion."

"This isn't the fourteenth century," said the President, shocked. "We can't take up arms and keep the Soviets or anyone else off the moon. Besides, the United Nations ruled that no country had jurisdiction over the moon and planets."

"Would the Kremlin heed U.N. policy if they were in our shoes? I think not." Joe twisted in the seat and extracted a putter from the bag. "The eighteenth green. Your final play, Mr. President."

Dazedly, the President lined up the lay of the green and sank a twenty-foot putt. "I could stop you," he said coldly.

"How? NASA has no ready hardware to land a platoon of Marines on the lunar surface. Thanks to the shortsightedness of you and your predecessors, their efforts are wrapped up in the orbiting space station."

"I can't stand by and allow you to start a war in space that might spill over on earth."

"Your hands are tied."

"You could be wrong about the Russians."

"Let us hope so," said Joe. "But I suspect they may have already killed Raymond LeBaron."

"And this is why you've taken me into your confidence?"

"If the worst happens, at least you have been alerted to the facts and can prepare your strategy for the bedlam to follow."

"Suppose I have my bodyguards arrest you as a crackpot assassin, and then blow the lid off Jersey Colony?"

"Arrest me and Reggie Salazar dies. Expose the project and all the behind-the-scenes double-dealing, the backstabbing, the fraud and the lies, and, yes, the deaths that took place to accomplish what has been achieved, will be laid on your political doorstep, beginning when you were sworn into the Senate. You'll get bounced out of the White House under a bigger cloud than Nixon, providing, of course, you live that long."

"You're threatening me with blackmail?" So far the President had kept his anger under control but now he was seething with fury. "Salazar's life would be a small price to pay to preserve the integrity of the presidency."

"Two weeks, then you can announce the existence of the Jersey Colony to the world. With trumpets sounding and drums beating you can play the big political hero. Two weeks, and you can demonstrate proof of this century's greatest scientific achievement."

"After all this time, why then?"

"Because that's when we've scheduled the original crew to leave Jersey Colony and return to earth with the accumulation of two decades of space research-- reports on meteorological and lunar probes, the scientific results on thousands of biological, chemical, and atmospheric experiments, uncountable photographs and miles of video records of the first human establishment of a planetary civilization. The first phase of the project is completed. The dream of the `inner core' is finished. Jersey Colony now belongs to the American people."

The President toyed with his putter thoughtfully. Then he asked, "Who are you?"

"Look to your memory. We knew each other many years ago."

"How am I to contact you?"

"I'll arrange another meeting when I feel it's required." Joe lifted the clubs from the cart's rack and began walking along a narrow path toward the clubhouse. Then he stopped and came back.

"By the way, I lied. That's not a bomb, but a present from the `inner core'-- a new box of golf balls."

The President gazed at him in frustration. "Burn in hell, Joe."

"Oh, and one more thing. . . congratulations."

"Congratulations?"

Joe handed him the scorecard. "I kept track of your play. You hit a seventy-nine."

<<4>>

The sleek hull of the sailboard skimmed the choppy water with the graceful elegance of an arrow shot through mist. Its slick and delicately curved shape was as visually pleasing to the eye as it was efficient in achieving great speed over the waves. Perhaps the simplest of all sailing systems, the board was built with a polyethylene shell molded over an inner core of rigid plastic foam to give it lightness and flexibility. A small skeg or fin protruded from below the stern for lateral control, while a daggerboard hung down near the middle to prevent the board from being swept sideways by the wind.

A triangular sail, dyed purple with a broad turquoise stripe, clung to an aluminum mast that was mounted onto the board by a universal joint. An oval tubular wishbone or boom circled the mast and sail, and was tightly gripped by long, slender hands that were coarse skinned and callused.

Dirk Pitt was tired, more tired than his dulled mind could accept. The muscles of his arms and legs felt as though they were sheathed in lead and the ache in his back and shoulders grew more intense with each maneuver of the sailboard. For at least the third time in the last hour he fought off a growing urge to head for the nearest beach and stretch out in the sand.

Through the clear window of the sail he studied the orange buoy marking the final windward leg of the thirty-mile boardsailing marathon race around Biscayne Bay to the Cape Florida lighthouse on Key Biscayne. Carefully, he chose his position to arc around the buoy. Deciding on a jibe, the most graceful maneuver in windsurfing, he threaded his way through the heavy traffic, weighted clown the stern of his board, and aimed the bow on the new course. Then, gripping the mast with one hand, he swung the rigging to windward, shifted his feet, and released the boom with his other hand. Next he pulled the fluttering sail against the wind and caught the boom at the precise moment. Propelled by a fresh twenty-knot breeze from the north, the sailboard sped through the choppy sea and soon gained a speed of nearly thirty miles an hour.

Pitt was mildly surprised to see that out of a field of forty-one racers, most of them at least fifteen years younger, he was in third place, only twenty yards behind the leaders.

The multicolored sails from the fleet of windsurfers flashed across the blue-green water like a prism gone mad. The finish at the lighthouse was in sight now. Pitt closely watched the boardsailer ahead of him, waiting for the right moment to attack. But before he attempted to pass, his opponent miscalculated a wave and fell. Now Pitt was second, with only half a mile to go.

Then, ominously, a dark shadow in a cloudless sky passed overhead and he heard the exhaust of propeller-driven aircraft engines above and slightly to his left. He stared upward and his eyes widened in disbelief.

No more than a hundred yards away, shielding the sun like an eclipse, a blimp was descending from the sky, her great bow set on a collision course with the sailboard fleet. She appeared to be drifting out of control. Her two engines were barely turning over at idle speed, but she was swept through the air by the strong breeze. The sailboarders watched helplessly as the giant intruder crossed their path.

The gondola struck the crest of a wave and the blimp bounced back into the air, leveling off five feet above the water in front of the lead boardsailer. Unable to turn in time, the young boy, no more than seventeen, dove from his board an instant before his mast and sail were minced to shreds under the blimp's starboard propeller.

Pitt nimbly carved a sharp tack and swung on a parallel course with the rampaging airship. From the corner of his eye he noted the name, Prosperteer, in huge red letters on her side. The gondola door was open, but he couldn't make out any movement inside. He shouted, but his voice was lost in the exhaust of the engines and rush of the wind. The ungainly craft skidded across the sea as though it had a mind of its own.

Suddenly, Pitt felt the prickle of disaster in the small of his back. The Prosperteer was moving toward the beach, only a quarter mile away, and headed directly at the broad terraced side of the Sonesta Beach Hotel. Though the impact of a lighter-than-air ship against a solid structure would cause little damage, there was the ugly certainty of fire from ruptured fuel tanks spilling into the rooms of dozing guests or falling onto the diners on the patio below.

Ignoring the numbing drain of exhaustion, Pitt angled his sailboard on a course that would cross under the great rounded nose. The gondola danced into another swell and a spinning propeller whipped a cloud of salt spray into his eyes. His vision blurred momentarily and he came within inches of losing his balance. He settled in a squatting stance and steadied his tiny craft as he narrowed the distance. Crowds of sunbathers gestured excitedly at the strange sight rapidly approaching the hotel's sloping beach.

Pitt's timing would have to be near perfect, there would be no second attempt. If he missed, there was every chance his body would end up in pieces behind the propellers. He was beginning to feel lightheaded. His strength was nearly sapped. He sensed that his muscles were taking longer to respond to the demands of his brain. He braced himself as his sailboard streaked under the blimp's nose.

Then he leaped.

His hands grasped one of the Prosperteer's bow ropes but slipped on the wet surface, scraping the skin from his fingers and palms. Desperately he swung a leg around the line and held on with every scrap of energy he had left. His weight pulled down the bow and he was dragged under the surface. He clawed up the rope until his head broke free. Then he was gulping air and spitting out seawater. The pursuer had become the captive.

The drag from Pitt's body wasn't nearly enough to stop the air monster, much less slow its momentum from the wind. He was about to release his precarious hold when his feet touched bottom. The blimp carried him through the surge of the surf and he felt like he was riding a roller coaster. Then he was hurtled onto the warm sands of the beach. He looked up and saw the low seawall of the hotel looming a scant hundred feet away.

My God! he thought, this is it-- in a few seconds the Prosperteer would crash into the hotel and possibly explode. And there was something else. The whirling propellers would shatter on impact, their metal fragments spraying the awestruck crowds with a force as deadly as shrapnel.

"For God's sake, help me!" Pitt shouted.

The mass of people on the beach stood frozen, their mouths gaping, held stupefied in childlike fascination by the strange spectacle. Suddenly two teenage girls and a boy sprang forward and grabbed one of the other tow ropes. Next came a lifeguard, followed by an elderly heavyset woman. Then the dam broke and twenty onlookers surged forward and gathered in the trailing lines. It was as though a tribe of half-naked natives had challenged a maddened brontosaurus to a tug-of-war.

Bare feet dug into the sand, plowing furrows as the stubborn mass above their heads tugged them across the beach. The drag on the bow lines caused the hull to pivot, and the huge finned tail swung around in a 180-degree arc until it was pointing at the hotel, the wheel on the bottom of the gondola scraping through the bushes growing from the top of the seawall, the propellers missing the concrete by inches and chopping through the branches and leaves.

A strong gust of wind blew in from the sea, shoving the Prosperteer over the patio, smashing umbrellas and tables, driving her stern toward the fifth story of the hotel. Lines were torn from hands and a wave of helplessness swept over the beach. The battle seemed lost.

Pitt struggled to his feet and half ran, half staggered to a nearby palm tree. In a final desperate act he coiled his line around the slender trunk, feverishly praying it wouldn't snap from the strain.

The line took up the slack and stretched taut. The fifty-foot palm shuddered, swayed, and bent for several seconds. The crowd collectively held its breath. Then with agonizing slowness, the tree gradually straightened into its former upright position. The shallow roots held firm and the blimp stopped, its fins less than six feet from the east wall of the hotel.

Two hundred people gave out a rousing cheer and began applauding. The women jumped up and down and laughed while the men roared and thrust out their hands in the thumbs-up position. No winning team ever received a more spontaneous ovation. The hotel security guards materialized and kept stray onlookers away from the still-turning propellers.

Sand coated Pitt's wet body as he stood there catching his breath, becoming conscious of the pain from his rope-burned hands. Staring up at the Prosperteer, he had his first solid look at the airship and was fascinated by the antiquated design. It was obvious she predated the modern Goodyear blimps.

He made his way around the scattered tables and chairs on the patio and climbed into the gondola. The crew were still strapped in their seats, unmoving, unspeaking. Pitt leaned over the pilot, found the ignition switches, and turned them off. The engines popped softly once or twice and went silent as their propellers gave a final twitch and came to rest.

The quiet was tomblike.

Pitt grimaced and scanned the interior of the gondola. There was no sign of damage, the instruments and controls appeared to be in operating order. But it was the extensive electronics that amazed him. Gradiometers for detecting iron, side-scan sonar and sub-bottom profiler to sweep the sea floor, everything for an underwater search expedition.

He wasn't aware of the sea of faces peering up into the open door of the gondola, nor did he hear the pulsating scream of approaching sirens. He felt detached and momentarily disoriented. The hot, humid atmosphere was heavy with a morbid eeriness and the sickening stench of human decay.

One of the crewmen was slouched over a small table, head resting on arms as if he were asleep. His clothes were damp and stained. Pitt placed his hand on a shoulder and gave a slight shake. There was no firmness to the flesh. It felt soft and pulpy. An icy shroud fell over him that lifted goose bumps on every inch of his skin, yet the sweat was trickling down his body in streams.

He turned his attention to the ghastly apparitions seated at the controls. Their faces were covered by a blanket of flies, and decomposition was eating away all traces of life. The skin was slipping from the flesh like broken blisters on burns. Jaws hung slack with mouths agape, the lips and tongues swollen and parched. Eyes were open and staring into nothingness, eyeballs opaque and clouded over. Hands still hung on the controls, their fingernails turned blue. Unchecked by enzymes, bacteria had formed gases that grotesquely bloated the stomachs. The damp air and the high temperatures of the tropics were greatly speeding the process of putrefaction.

The rotting corpses inside the Prosperteer had flown from some unknown grave, a macabre crew in a charnel airship on a ghostly mission.

<<5>>

The naked corpse of an adult black woman lay stretched on an examining table under the glaring lights of the autopsy room. Preservation was excellent, no visible injuries due to violence. To the trained eye the state of rigor mortis indicated she had been dead less than seven hours. Her age appeared to be somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. The body might have drawn male stares once, but now it lay undernourished, wasted, and ravaged by a decade of drug intake.

The Dade County coroner, Dr. Calvin Rooney, wasn't too pleased about doing the autopsy. There were enough deaths in Miami to keep his staff working around the clock, and he preferred to spend his time on the more dramatic and puzzling postmortem examinations. A garden-variety drug overdose held little interest for him. But this one was found dumped on a county commissioner's front lawn, and it wouldn't do to send in a third-string quarterback.

Wearing a blue lab coat because he detested the standard white issue, Rooney, a home-grown Floridian, U.S. Army veteran, and Harvard Medical School graduate, slipped a new cassette in a portable tape recorder and dryly commented on the general condition of the body.

He picked up a scalpel and bent over for the dissection, starting a few inches under the chin and slicing downward toward the pubic bone. Suddenly Rooney halted the incision over the chest cavity and leaned closer, squinting through a pair of wide-lensed, horn-rimmed glasses. In the next fifteen minutes, he removed and examined the heart while delivering a running monologue into the tape recorder.

Rooney was in the midst of making a last-minute observation when Sheriff Tyler Sweat entered the autopsy room. He was a medium-built, brooding man, slightly round-shouldered, his face a blend of melancholy and brutish determination. Methodical and shrewdly earnest, he enjoyed great respect from the men and women under him.

He threw an expressionless glance at the opened cadaver and then nodded a greeting to Rooney. "New piece of meat?"

"The woman from the commissioner's yard," answered Rooney.

"Another OD?"

"No such luck. More work for homicide. She was murdered. I found three punctures in the heart."

"Ice pick?"

"From all indications."

Sweat peered at the balding little chief medical examiner, whose benign appearance seemed better suited to a parish priest. "They can't fool you, Doc."

"What brings the master scourge of evildoers to the forensic palace?" Rooney asked amiably. "You slumming?"

"No, an identification by VIPs. I'd like you in on it."

"The bodies from the blimp," Rooney deduced.

Sweat nodded. "Mrs. LeBaron is here to view the remains."

"I don't recommend it. What's left of her husband isn't a pretty sight to someone who doesn't see death every day."

"I tried to tell her that identification of his effects would satisfy legal requirements, but she persisted. Even brought along an aide from the governor's office to grease the way"

"Where are they?"

"Waiting in the morgue office."

"News media?"

"An entire regiment of TV and press reporters running around like crazy people. I've ordered my deputies to keep them confined to the lobby."

"Strange how the world works," said Rooney in one of his philosophical moods. "The renowned Raymond LeBaron gets front-page headlines while this poor baggage gets a column inch next to classified advertising." Then he sighed, removed his lab coat, and threw it over a chair. "Let's get it over with. I've got two more postmortems to conduct this afternoon."

As he spoke a tropical storm passed over and the sound of thunder rumbled through the walls. Rooney slipped on a sports jacket and straightened his tie. They fell into step, Sweat staring down pensively at the design in the hallway carpet.

"Any idea on the cause of LeBaron's death?" asked the sheriff.

"Too soon to tell. The lab results were inconclusive. I want to run some more tests. Too many things don't add up. I don't mind admitting, this one is a puzzler."

"No guesses?"

"Nothing I'd put on paper. Problem is the incredibly rapid rate of decomposition. I've seldom seen tissue disintegrate so fast, except maybe once back in 1974."

Before Sweat could prod Rooney's recollection, they reached the morgue office and entered. The governor's aide, a slippery type in a three-piece suit, jumped up. Even before he opened his mouth, Rooney classified him as a jerk.

"Can we please get the show on the road, Sheriff. Mrs. LeBaron is most uncomfortable and would like to return to her hotel as soon as possible."

"I sympathize with her," the sheriff drawled. "But I shouldn't have to remind a public servant that there are certain laws we must follow."

"And I needn't remind you, the governor expects your department to extend every courtesy to ease her grief."

Rooney marveled at Sweat's stony patience. The sheriff simply brushed by the aide as though he were walking past trash on a sidewalk.

"This is our chief medical examiner, Dr. Rooney. He will assist with the identification."

Jessie LeBaron didn't look the least bit uncomfortable. She sat in an orange plastic contour chair, poised, cool, head held high. And yet Rooney sensed a fragility that was held together by discipline and nerve. He was an old hand at presiding over corpse identification by relatives. He'd suffered through the ordeal hundreds of times in his career and instinctively spoke softly and in a gentle manner.

"Mrs. LeBaron, I understand what you're going through and will make this as painless as possible. But first, I wish to make it clear that by simply identifying the effects found on the bodies you will satisfy the laws set down by the state and county. Second, any physical characteristics you can recall, such as scars, dental work, bone fractures, or surgical incisions, will be of great help in my own identification. And third, I respectfully beg you not to view the remains. Though facial features are still recognizable, decomposition has done its work. I think you'd be happier remembering Mr. LeBaron as he was in life rather than how he looks in a morgue."

"Thank you, Dr. Rooney," said Jessie. "I'm grateful for your concern. But I must be certain my husband is truly dead."

Rooney nodded miserably, and then gestured at a worktable containing several pieces of clothing, wallets, wristwatches, and other personal articles. "You've identified Mr. LeBaron's effects?"

"Yes, I have sorted through them."

"And you're satisfied they belonged to him?"

"There can be no doubt about the wallet and its contents. The watch was a gift from me on our first anniversary."

Rooney walked over and held it up. "A gold Cartier with matching band and roman numerals marked in. . . am I correct in saying they're diamonds?"

"Yes, a rare form of black diamond. It was his birthstone."

"April, I believe."

She merely nodded.

"Besides your husband's personal articles, Mrs. LeBaron, do you recognize anything belonging to Buck Caesar or Joseph Cavilla?"

"I don't recall the jewelry they wore, but I'm certain the other clothing items are what Buck and Joe were wearing when I last saw them."

"Our investigators can find no next of kin of Caesar and Cavilla," said Sweat. "It would be most helpful if you can point out which articles of clothing belonged to whom."

For the first time Jessie LeBaron faltered. "I'm not sure. . . I think the denim shorts and flowered shirt are Buck's. The other things probably belonged to Joe Cavilla." She paused. "May we view my husband's body now?"

"I can't change your mind?" Rooney asked in a sympathetic voice.

"No, I must insist."

"You'd best do what Mrs. LeBaron asks," said the governor's aide, who had yet to introduce himself.

Rooney looked at Sweat and shrugged in resignation. "If you will please follow me. The remains are kept in the refrigeration room."

Obediently, everyone trailed him to a thick door with a small window set at eye level and stood in silence as he yanked on a heavy latch. Cold air spilled over the threshold and Jessie involuntarily shivered as Rooney motioned them inside. A morgue attendant appeared and led the way to one of the square doors along the wall. He swung it open, pulled out a sliding stainless steel table, and stood aside.

Rooney took one corner of the sheet covering the corpse and hesitated. This was the only part of his job he hated. The reaction to viewing the dead usually fell into four categories. Those who vomited, those who passed out cold, those who broke into hysterics. But it was the last type that intrigued Rooney. The ones who stood as if turned to stone and showed no emotion at all. He would have given a month's salary to know the thoughts circulating through their minds.

He lifted the sheet.

The governor's aide took one look, made a pathetic groaning sound, and passed out into the arms of the sheriff. The grisly work of decay was revealed in all its horror.

Rooney was astonished by Jessie's response. She stared long and hard at the grotesque thing that lay rotting on the table. She sucked in her breath and her whole body went taut. Then she raised her eyes, not blinking, and spoke in a calm, controlled voice.

"That is not my husband!"

"Are you positive?" Rooney asked softly.

"Look for yourself," she said in a flat monotone. "The hairline is wrong. So is the bone structure. Raymond had an angular face. This one is more round."

"Decomposition of the flesh distorts facial features," Rooney explained.

"Please study the teeth."

Rooney looked down. "What about them?"

"They have silver fillings."

"I don't follow."

"My husband's fillings were gold."

There was no arguing with her on that score, thought Rooney. A man of Raymond LeBaron's wealth wouldn't have settled for cheap dental work.

"But the watch, the clothing, you identified them as his."

"I don't give a damn what I said!" she cried. "This loathsome thing is not Raymond LeBaron."

Rooney was stunned at her fury. He stood dazed and unable to speak as she stormed from the icy room. The sheriff handed the limp aide to the morgue attendant and turned to the coroner.

"What in hell do you make of that?"

Rooney shook his head. "I don't know."

"My guess is, she went into shock. Probably fell over the edge and began raving. You know better than I, most people can't accept the death of a loved one. She closed her mind and refused to accept the truth."

"She wasn't raving."

Sweat looked at him. "What do you call it?"

"Shrewd acting."

"How did you pick that out of the air?"

"The wristwatch," answered Rooney. "One of my staff worked nights as a jeweler to put himself through medical school. He spotted it right off. The expensive Cartier watch Mrs. LeBaron gave her husband on their anniversary is a fake, one of those inexpensive reproductions that are illegally manufactured in Taiwan or Mexico."

"Why would a woman who could write a check for a million dollars give her husband a cheap imitation?"

"Raymond LeBaron was no slouch when it came to style and taste. He must have recognized it for what it was. Better to ask the question, why did he stoop to wearing it?"

"So you think she put on an act and lied about the body ID?"

"My gut reaction is that she prepared herself for what to expect," Rooney replied. "And I'd go, so far as to bet my new Mercedes-Benz that genetic tracing, the dental report, and the results of the rubber casts I made from what remained of the fingerprints and sent to the FBI lab will prove she was right." He turned and peered at the corpse. "That isn't Raymond LeBaron lying there on the slab."

<<6>>

Detective Lieutenant Harry Victor, a lead investigator for the Metro Dade County Police Department, sat back in a swivel chair and studied several photographs taken inside the Prosperteer's control cabin. After several minutes, he raised a pair of rimless glasses over a forehead that slipped under a blond hairpiece and rubbed his eyes.

Victor was a tidy man, everything in its correct pigeonhole, neatly alphabetized and consecutively numbered, the only cop in the memory of the department who actually enjoyed making out reports. When most men watched sports on television on weekends or relaxed around a resort swimming pool on vacations, reading Rex Burns detective novels, Victor reviewed files on unsolved cases. A diehard, he was more fanatical about tying up loose ends than obtaining a conviction.

The Prosperteer case was unlike any he'd faced in his eighteen years on the force. Three dead men falling out of the sky in an antique blimp didn't exactly lend itself to routine police investigation. Leads were nonexistent. The three bodies in the morgue revealed no clues to where they had been hiding for a week and a half.

He lowered his glasses and was attacking the photographs again when the desk phone buzzed. He lifted the receiver and said pensively, "Yes?"

"You have a witness to see you about a statement," answered the receptionist.

"Send him on back," said Victor.

He closed the file containing the photographs and laid it on the metal desk, whose surface was antiseptic except for a small sign with his name and the telephone. He held the receiver to his ear as though receiving a call and swiveled sideways, looking across the spacious homicide office, keeping his eyes focused at an angle toward the door leading to the corridor.

A uniformed receptionist appeared at the threshold and pointed in Victor's direction. A tall man nodded, eased past her, and approached. Victor gestured to a chair opposite the desk and began muttering in a one-way conversation with the dial tone. It was an old interrogation ploy that gave him an uninterrupted minute to inspect a witness or suspect and mentally construct a profile. Most important, it was an opportunity to observe habits and odd mannerisms that could be used for leverage later.

The male seated across from Victor was about thirty-seven or thirty-eight, approximately six foot three, weight 185, give or take five pounds, black hair tending to be a bit wavy, with no indication of gray. Skin darkened from year-round exposure to the sun. Eyebrows dark and slightly bushy. Straight, narrow nose, lips firm with corners turned up in a slight but fixed grin. Wearing light blue sports coat and off-white slacks, pale yellow polo shirt with collar open. Good taste, casual but not ultraexpensive, probably purchased at Saks rather than a plush 'men's store. Nonsmoker, as there was no evidence of cigarette package bulge in coat or shirt. Arms were folded, suggesting calm and indifference, and the hands were narrow, long and weathered. No rings or other jewelry, only an old orange-faced diver's watch with a heavy stainless steel band.

This one didn't follow the general pattern. The others who had sat in that chair turned fidgety after a while. Some masked nervousness with arrogance, most restlessly stared around the office, through the windows, at pictures on the walls, at the other officers working their cases, changing position, crossing and recrossing their legs. For the first time Victor could recall, he felt uncomfortable and at a disadvantage. His routine was sidetracked, his act rapidly washing out.

The visitor wasn't the least bit ruffled. He stared at Victor with bemused interest through opaline green eyes that possessed a mesmeric quality. They seemed to pass right through the detective, and finding nothing of interest, examined the paint on the wall behind. Then they dropped to the telephone.

"Most police departments use the Horizon Communications System," he said in an even tone. "If you wish to speak to someone on the other end, I suggest you push a button for an open line."

Victor looked down. One of his four buttons was lit but not punched "You're very astute, Mr. . .?"

"Pitt, Dirk Pitt. If you're Lieutenant Victor, we had an appointment." "I'm Victor." He paused to replace the receiver in its cradle. "You were the first person inside the control car of the Prosperteer blimp?"

"That's right."

"Thank you for coming in, especially so early on a Sunday. I'd appreciate your cooperation in clearing up a few questions."

"Not at all. Will it take long?"

"Twenty minutes, maybe half an hour. Do you have to be somewhere?"

"I'm booked on a plane for Washington in two hours."

Victor nodded. "I'll get you on your way in plenty of time." He pulled open a drawer and took out a portable tape recorder. "Let's go somewhere more private."

He led Pitt down a long hallway to a small interview room. The interior was spartan, only a desk, two chairs, and an ashtray. Victor sat down and fed a new cassette into the recorder.

"Mind if I put our conversation on tape? I'm a terrible note taker. None of the secretaries can decipher my handwriting."

Pitt shrugged agreeably.

Victor moved the machine to the center of the desk and pressed the red Record button.

"Your name?"

"Dirk Pitt."

"Middle initial?"

"E for Eric."

"Address?"

"266 Airport Place, Washington, D.C. 20001."

"Telephone where you can be reached?"

Pitt gave Victor the phone number of his office.

"Occupation?"

"Special projects director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

"Can you describe the event you witnessed on the afternoon of Saturday, October 20?"

Pitt told Victor of his sighting the out-of-control blimp during the sailboard marathon race, the mad ride while clinging to the mooring line, and the last-second capture only a few feet away from potential disaster, ending with his entry into the gondola.

"Did you touch anything?"

"Only the ignition and battery switches. And I laid my hand on the shoulder of the corpse seated at the navigator's table."

"Nothing else?"

"The only other place I might have left a fingerprint was on the boarding ladder."

"And the backrest of the copilot's seat," said Victor with a smug smile. "No doubt when you leaned over and turned off the switches."

"Fast work. Next time I'll wear surgical gloves."

"The FBI was most cooperative."

"I admire competence."

"Did you take anything?"

Pitt shot Victor a sharp look. "No."

"Could anyone else have entered and removed any objects?"

Pitt shook his head. "After I left, the hotel security guards sealed off the gondola. The next person inside was a uniformed police officer."

"Then what did you do?"

"I paid one of the hotel lifeguards to swim out and retrieve my sailboard. He owned a small pickup truck and was kind enough to run me back to the house where I was staying with friends."

"In Miami?"

"Coral Gables."

"Mind if I ask what you were doing in town?"

"I wound up an offshore exploration project for NUMA and decided to take a week's vacation."

"Did you recognize any of the bodies?"

"Not damned likely. I couldn't identify my own father in that condition."

"Any idea who they might be?"

"I assume one of them was Raymond LeBaron."

"You're familiar with the disappearance of the Prosperteer?"

"The news media covered the disappearance in great depth. Only a backwoods recluse could have missed it."

"Any pet theories on where the blimp and its crew were buried for ten days?"

"I haven't a clue."

"Not even a wild idea?" Victor persisted.

"Could be a colossal publicity stunt, a media campaign to promote LeBaron's publishing empire."

Interest grew in Victor's eyes. "Go on."

"Or maybe an ingenious scheme to manipulate LeBaron conglomerate stock prices. Sell large blocks before he disappears and buy when prices tumble afterward. And sell again when they rise during his resurrection."

"How do you explain their deaths?"

"The plot backfired."

"Why?"

"Ask your coroner."

"I'm asking you."

"They probably ate tainted fish on whatever deserted island they hung out on," said Pitt, tiring of the game. "How would I know? If you want a scenario, hire a screenwriter."

The interest in Victor's eyes blinked out. He relaxed in his chair and sighed dejectedly. "I thought for a second you might have something, a gimmick that could get me and the department off the hook. But your theory went down the drain like all the others."

"I'm not surprised," said Pitt with an indifferent grin.

"How were you able to switch off the power within seconds of entering the control car?" Victor asked, bringing the interrogation back on track.

"After piloting twenty different aircraft during service in the Air Force and civilian life, I knew where to look."

Victor appeared satisfied. "One more question, Mr. Pitt. When you first spotted the blimp, from what direction was she flying?"

"She was drifting with the wind out of the northeast."

Victor reached over and turned off the recorder. "That should do it. Can I reach you at your office number during the day?"

"If I'm not there, my secretary can track me down."

"Thank you for your help."

"Nothing substantial, I'm afraid," said Pitt.

"We have to pull on every thread. Lots of pressure with LeBaron being the bigshot that he was. This has to be the weirdest case the department's ever encountered."

"I don't envy you finding a solution." Pitt glanced at his watch and rose from his chair. "I'd better get a move on for the airport."

Victor stood and reached across the desk to shake hands. "If you should dream up another plot line, Mr. Pitt, please give me a call. I'm always interested in a good fantasy."

Pitt paused in the doorway and turned, a foxlike expression on his face. "You want a lead, Lieutenant? Run this one up the flagpole. Airships need helium for their lift. An old antique like the Prosperteer must have required a couple hundred thousand cubic feet of gas to get her in the air. After a week, enough would have leaked out to keep her grounded. Do you follow?"

"Depends on where you're heading."

"There is no way the blimp could have materialized off Miami unless an experienced crew with the necessary supplies reinflated the hull forty-eight hours before."

Victor had the look of a man about to be baptized. "What are you suggesting?"

"That you look for a friendly neighborhood service station that can pump two hundred thousand cubic feet of helium."

Then Pitt turned into the hallway and was gone.

<<7>>

"I hate boats," Rooney grumbled. "I can't swim, can't float, and get seasick looking through the window of a washing machine."

Sheriff Sweat handed him a double martini. "Here, this will cure your hangups."

Rooney ruefully eyed the waters of the bay and drained half his drink. "You're not going out in the ocean, I hope."

"No, just a leisurely cruise around the bay." Sweat ducked into the forward cabin of his gleaming white fishing boat and turned over the engine. The single 260-horsepower turbocharged diesel knocked into life. Exhaust rumbled from the stern and the deck throbbed beneath their feet. Then Sweat cast off the lines and eased the boat away from the dock, threading through a maze of moored yachts to Biscayne Bay.

By the time the bow skipped past the channel buoys, Rooney was looking for a second drink. "Where do you keep the courage?"

"Down in the forward cabin. Help yourself. There's ice in the brass diver's helmet."

When Rooney resurfaced he asked, "What's this all about, Tyler? This is Sunday. You didn't drag me away from my season box in the middle of a good football game to show me Miami Beach from the water."

"Truth is, I heard you finished your report on the bodies from the blimp last night."

"Three o'clock this morning, to be exact."

"I thought you might want to tell me something."

"For God's sake, Tyler, what's so damned earthshaking that you couldn't have waited until tomorrow morning?"

"About an hour ago, I got a call from some Fed in Washington." Sweat paused to ease the throttle up a notch. "Said he was with a domestic intelligence agency I'd never heard of. I won't bore you with his downright belligerent talk. Never can understand why everybody up North thinks they can blindside a Southern boy. The upshot was he demanded we turn over the dead from the blimp to federal authorities."

"Which federal authorities?"

"Refused to name them. Got vague as hell when I pushed."

Rooney was suddenly intensely interested. "He give any hint why they wanted the bodies?"

"Claimed it was a security matter."

"You told him no, of course."

"I told him I'd think about it."

The turn of events and the gin combined to make Rooney forget his fear of water. He began to notice the trim lines of the fiberglass craft. It was Sheriff Sweat's second office, occasionally pressed into service as a backup police cruiser, but more often used to entertain county and state officials on weekend fishing trips.

"What do you call her?" Rooney asked.

"Call who?"

"The boat."

"Oh, the Southern Comfort. She's a thirty-five-footer, cruises at fifteen knots. Built in Australia by an outfit called Stebercraft."

"To get back to the LeBaron case," Rooney said, sipping at his martini, "are you going to give in?"

"I'm tempted," said Sweat, smiling. "Homicide has yet to turn up lead one. The news media are making a circus out of it. Everybody from the governor on down is pressuring my ass. And to top, it off, there's every likelihood the crime wasn't committed in my jurisdiction. Hell, yes, I'm tempted to pass the buck to Washington. Only I'm just stubborn enough to think we might pull a solution out of this mess."

"All right, what do you want from me?"

The sheriff turned from the helm and looked at him steadily. "I want you to tell me what's in your report."

"My findings made the puzzle worse."

A small sailboat with four teenagers slipped across their bow and Sweat slowed down and gave way. "Tell me about it."

"Let's start at the end and work backwards. Okay with you?"

"Go ahead."

"Threw the hell out of me at first. Mostly because I wasn't looking for it. I had a similar case fifteen years ago. A female body was discovered sitting in a patio chair in her backyard. Her husband claimed they'd been drinking the night before and he'd gone to bed alone, thinking she would follow. When he awoke in the morning and looked around, he found her right where he left her, sitting on the patio, only now she was dead. She had all the appearances of a natural death, no marks of violence, no sign of poison, just a generous amount of alcohol. The organs seemed healthy enough. There were no indications of previous disease or disorder. For a woman of forty she had the body of a twenty-five-year-old. It bugged the hell out of me. Then the pieces began to come together. The postmortem lividity-- that's the discoloration of the skin caused by the sinking of blood due to gravity-- is usually purplish. Her lividity was cherry pink, which pointed to death from either cyanide or carbon monoxide poisoning or hypothermia. I also discovered hemorrhaging of the pancreas. Through a process of elimination the first two were discarded. The final nail in the coffin was the husband's occupation. The evidence wasn't exactly hard core, but it was enough for the judge to put him away for fifty years."

"What was the husband's line of work?" asked Sweat.

"He drove a truck for a frozen-food company. A neat plan. He pumped booze in her until she passed out. Set her inside his truck, which he always took home nights and weekends, turned up the refrigeration unit, and waited for her to harden. After the poor woman expired, he put her back in the patio chair and went to bed."

Sweat stared blankly. "You're not saying the corpses found in the blimp froze to death."

"I'm saying exactly that."

"No mistake?"

"On a certainty scale from one to ten, I can promise an eight."

"Do you realize how that sounds?"

"Crazy, I would imagine."

"Three men disappear over the Caribbean in ninety-degree weather and freeze to death?" Sweat asked no one in particular. "We'll never make this one stick, Doe. Not without a handy frozen-food truck."

"You've got nothing to stick it to anyway."

"Meaning?"

"The FBI report came in. Jessie LeBaron's ID was on the money. That isn't her husband in the morgue. The other two aren't Buck Caesar or Joseph Cavilla either."

"God, what next," Sweat moaned. "Who are they?"

"There's no record of them in the FBI's fingerprint files. Best guess is they were foreign nationals."

"Did you find anything at all that might give a clue to their identity?"

"I can give you their height and weight. I can show you X rays of their teeth and previous bone fractures. Their livers suggested all three favored generous amounts of hard liquor. The lungs gave away their heavy smoking, teeth and fingertips the fact they smoked unfiltered cigarettes. They were also big eaters. Their last meal consisted of dark bread and various fruits and beets. Two were in their early thirties. One was forty or over. They were in above-average physical condition. Beyond that I can tell you very little that might pin an ID on them."

"It's a start."

"But it still leaves us with LeBaron, Caesar, and Cavilla among the missing."

Before Sweat could reply a female voice rasped out his boat's call sign over the radio speaker. He answered and turned to another channel frequency as instructed.

"Sorry for the interruption," he said to Rooney. "I've got an emergency call over the ship-to-shore phone."

Rooney nodded, went into the forward cabin, and poured himself another drink. A delicious glow coursed through his body. He took a few moments to go to the head. When he returned topside to the wheelhouse, Sweat was hanging up the phone, his face red with anger.

"The rotten bastards!" he hissed.

"What's the problem?" Rooney asked.

"They seized them," Sweat said, pounding the helm with his fist. "The damned Feds walked into the morgue and seized the bodies from the blimp."

"But there are legal procedures to follow," Rooney protested.

"Six men in plainclothes and two federal marshals showed up with the necessary paperwork, stuffed the corpses into three aluminum canisters filled with ice, and took off in a U.S. Navy helicopter."

"When did this happen?"

"Not ten minutes ago. Harry Victor, the lead investigator on the case, says they also rifled his desk in the homicide office when he was in the john and ripped off his files."

"What about my autopsy report?"

"They lifted that too."

The gin had put Rooney in a euphoric mood. "Oh, well, look at it this way. They took you and the department off the hook."

Sweat's anger slowly subsided. "I can't deny they did me a favor, but it's their method that pisses me off."

"There's one small consolation," mumbled Rooney. He was beginning to have trouble standing. "Uncle Sam didn't get everything."

"Like what?"

"Something omitted from my report. One lab result that was too controversial to put on paper, too wild to mention outside a looney house."

"What are you talking about?" Sweat demanded.

"The cause of death."

"You said hypothermia."

"True, but I left out the best part. You see, I neglected to state the time of death." Rooney's speech was becoming slurred.

"Could only be within the last few days."

"Oh, no. Those poor guys froze their guts a long time ago."

"How long?"

"Anywhere from one to two years ago."

Sheriff Sweat stared at Rooney, incredulous. But the coroner stood there grinning like a hyena. He was still grinning when he sagged over the side of the boat and threw up.

<<8>>

The home of Dirk Pitt was not on a suburban street or in a high-rise condominium overlooking the jungled treetops of Washington. There was no landscaped yard or next-door neighbors with squealing children and barking dogs. The house was not a house but an old aircraft hangar that stood on the edge of the capital's International Airport.

From the outside it appeared deserted. Weeds surrounded the building and its corrugated walls were weathered and devoid of paint. The only clue remotely suggesting any occupancy was a row of windows running beneath the huge curved roof. Though they were stained and layered with dust, none were shattered like those of an abandoned warehouse.

Pitt thanked the airport maintenance man who had given him a lift from the terminal area. Glancing around to see that he wasn't observed, he took a small transmitter from his coat pocket and issued a series of voice commands that closed down the security systems and opened a side door that looked as if it hadn't swung on its hinges for thirty years.

He entered and stepped onto a polished concrete floor that held nearly three dozen gleaming, classic automobiles, an antique airplane, and a turn-of-the-century railroad car. He paused and stared fondly at the chassis of a French Talbot-Lago sports coupe that was in an early stage of reconstruction. The car had been nearly destroyed in an explosion, and he was determined to restore the twisted remains to their previous elegance and beauty.

He hauled his suitcase and garment bag up a circular staircase to his apartment, elevated against the far wall of the hangar. His watch read 2:15 PM., but his mind and body felt as though it was closer to midnight. After unpacking his luggage, he decided to spend a few hours working on the Talbot-Lago and take a shower later. He had already donned a pair of old coveralls and his hand was pulling open the drawer of a toolbox, when a loud chime echoed through the hangar. He pulled a cordless phone from a deep pocket.

"Hello."

"Mr. Pitt, please," said a female voice.

"Speaking."

"One moment."

After waiting for nearly two minutes, Pitt cut the connection and began rebuilding the Talbot's distributor. Another five minutes passed before the chime sounded again. He opened the line and said nothing.

"Are you still there, sir?" asked the same voice.

"Yes," Pitt replied indifferently, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear as he kept working with his hands.

"This is Sandra Cabot, Mrs. Jessie LeBaron's personal secretary. Am I talking to Dirk Pitt?"

Pitt took an instant dislike to people who couldn't dial their own phone calls. "You are."

"Mrs. LeBaron wishes to meet with you. Can you come to the house at four o'clock?"

"Pretty fast off the mark, aren't you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Sorry, Miss Cabot, but I have to doctor a sick car. Maybe if Mrs. LeBaron cares to drop by my place, we could talk."

"I'm afraid that won't do. She's holding a formal cocktail party in the greenhouse later in the evening that will be attended by the Secretary of State. She can't possibly break away."

"Some other time then."

There was an icy silence, then Miss Cabot said, "You don't understand."

"You're right, I don't understand."

"Doesn't the name LeBaron mean anything to you?"

"No more than Shagnasty, Quagmire, or Smith," Pitt lied fiendishly.

She seemed lost for a moment. "Mr. LeBaron--"

"We can cut the fun and games," Pitt interrupted. "I'm quite aware of Raymond LeBaron's reputation. And I can save us both time by saying I have nothing to add to the mystery surrounding his disappearance and death. Tell Mrs. LeBaron she has my condolences. That's all I can offer."

Cabot took a deep breath and exhaled. "Please, Mr. Pitt, I know she would be most grateful if you could see her."

Pitt could almost see her speaking the word "please" through clenched teeth. "All right," he said. "I guess I can make it. What's the address?"

The arrogance quickly returned to her tone. "I'll send the chauffeur to pick you up."

"If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer to drive my own car. I get claustrophobic in limousines."

"If you insist," she said stiffly. "You'll find the house at the end of Beacon Drive in Great Falls Estates."

"I'll check a street map."

"By the way, what kind of car do you drive?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"To inform the guard at the gate."

Pitt hesitated and looked across the hangar floor at a car parked by the main door. "An old convertible."

"Old?"

"Yes, a 1951."

"Then would you be so kind to park in the lot by the servants' house. It's to the right as you come up the drive."

"Aren't you ever ashamed of the way you dictate to people?"

"I don't have to be ashamed of anything, Mr. Pitt. We'll expect you at four."

"Will you be through with me before the guests arrive?" asked Pitt, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone by having them see my old junk car littering the grounds."

"Not to worry," she replied testily. "The party doesn't begin until eight. Goodbye."

After Sandra Cabot hung up, Pitt walked over to the convertible, staring at it for several moments. He removed the floorboards under the rear seat and clipped on the cables of a battery charger. Then he returned to the Talbot-Lago and calmly took up where he left off.

At precisely eight-thirty, the security guard at the LeBaron estate's front gate greeted a young couple driving a yellow Ferrari, checked their names on the party list, and waved them through. Next came a Chrysler limousine carrying the President's chief adviser, Daniel Fawcett, and his wife.

The guard was immune to the exotic cars and their celebrity occupants. He raised his hands over his head in a bored stretch and yawned. Then his hands froze in midair and his mouth snapped shut as he found himself staring at the largest car he'd ever seen.

The car was a veritable monster, measuring nearly twenty-two feet from bumper to bumper and weighing well over three tons. The hood and doors were silver-gray and the fenders a metallic maroon. A convertible, its top was completely hidden from view when folded down. The body lines were smooth and elegant in the grand manner, an example of flawless craftsmanship seldom equaled.

"That's some kind of car," the guard finally said. "What is it?"

"A Daimler," replied Pitt.

"Sounds British."

"It is."

The guard shook his head in admiration and looked at his guest list. "Your name, please."

"Pitt."

"I can't seem to find your name. Do you have an invitation?"

"Mrs. LeBaron and I had an earlier appointment."

The guard went into the gatehouse and checked a clipboard. "Yes, sir, your appointment was for four o'clock."

"When I phoned to say I was running late, she said to join the party."

"Well, since she expected you," the guard said, still soaking in the Daimler's lines, "I guess it's all right. Have a good evening."

Pitt nodded a thank-you and eased the immense car silently up the winding drive to the LeBaron residence. The main building sat on a low hill above a tennis court and a swimming pool. The architecture was common to the area, a three-story brick colonial with a series of white columns holding up the roof over a long front porch, the wings extending to each side. To the right a clump of pine trees shielded a carriage house with a garage below, what Pitt assumed were the servants' living quarters. Opposite and to the left of the manor sat a huge glass-enclosed structure, lit by crystal chandeliers hanging from the roof. Exotic flowers and shrubs blossomed around twenty or more dinner tables while a small orchestra played on a stage beneath a waterfall. Pitt was properly impressed. The perfect setting for a party on a brisk October evening. Raymond LeBaron got high marks for originality. He pulled the Daimler up to the front of the greenhouse where a liveried parking valet stood with the awed expression of a carpenter gazing at redwoods.

As he slid from behind the wheel and straightened the jacket of his tuxedo Pitt noticed a crowd beginning to gather behind the transparent wall of the greenhouse, pointing and gesturing at the car. He gave the valet instructions on how to shift the transmission and then passed through the glass doors. The orchestra was playing themes from John Barry scores, light on the brass and heavy on the strings. A woman, elegantly dressed in the latest designer fashion, was standing just inside the entrance, greeting the guests.

He had no doubt she was Jessie LeBaron. Cool composure, the embodiment of grace and style, the living proof women can be beautiful after fifty. She wore a glittery beaded green and silver tunic over a long, slim velvet skirt.

Pitt approached and gave a brief bow. "Good evening," he said, flashing his best gate crasher's smile.

"What is that sensational car?" Jessie asked, peering through the doorway.

"A Daimler powered by a 5.4 liter, straight-eight engine with Hooper coachwork."

She smiled' graciously and extended her hand. "Thank you for coming, Mr. . ." She hesitated, gazing at him curiously. "Forgive me, but I don't seem to recall meeting you before."

"That's because we've never laid eyes on each other," he said, marveling at her throaty voice, almost husky, with a sensual coarseness about it. "My name is Pitt, Dirk Pitt."

Jessie's dark eyes looked at Pitt in a most peculiar way. "You're four and a half hours late, Mr. Pitt. Did you suffer some sort of accidental delay?"

"No accident, Mrs. LeBaron. I planned my arrival most carefully."

"You weren't invited to the party," she said smoothly. "So you'll have to leave."

"A pity," said Pitt mournfully. "I seldom get a chance to wear my tux."

Jessie's face registered scorn. She turned to a prim woman wearing large-lensed glasses and standing slightly to her rear, who Pitt guessed was her secretary, Sandra Cabot.

"Find Angelo and tell him to show this gentleman out."

Pitt's green eyes glinted mischievously. "I seem to have a talent for spreading ill will. Do you wish me to go peacefully or cause a nasty scene?"

"I think peacefully would be best."

"Then why did you ask to meet with me?"

"A matter concerning my husband."

"He was a perfect stranger to me. I can't tell you anything about his death that you don't already know."

"Raymond is not dead," she said adamantly.

"When I saw him in the blimp he gave a damn good imitation of it."

"That wasn't him."

Pitt stared at her skeptically, saying nothing.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"I don't really care."

"I was hoping you'd help me."

"You have a strange way of asking for favors."

"This a formal charity dinner, Mr. Pitt. You don't fit in. We'll set a time to meet tomorrow."

Pitt decided his anger wasn't important, so he shoved it aside. "What was your husband doing when he disappeared?" he asked abruptly.

"Searching for the El Dorado treasure," she replied, looking nervously around the greenhouse at her guests. "He believed it sank on a ship called the Cyclops."

Before Pitt could make a comment, Cabot returned with Angelo, the Cuban chauffeur.

"Goodbye, Mr. Pitt," said Jessie, dismissing him and greeting a pair of new arrivals.

Pitt shrugged and offered his arm to Angelo. "Let's make it official. You lead me out." Then he turned to Jessie. "One last thing, Mrs. LeBaron. I don't respond to shabby treatment. You needn't bother to contact me again, ever."

Then Pitt allowed Angelo to escort him from the greenhouse to the driveway where the Daimler was waiting. Jessie watched as the great car disappeared into the night. Then she began mingling with her guests.

Douglas Oates, the Secretary of State, looked over from a conversation he was having with presidential adviser Daniel Fawcett as she approached. "Splendid affair, Jessie."

"Yes indeed," echoed Fawcett. "Nobody in Washington puts on a finer spread."

Jessie's eyes flashed and her full lips curved in a warm smile. "Thank you, gentlemen."

Oates nodded toward the doorway. "Was I imagining things, or did I see Dirk Pitt bounced out the door?"

Jessie looked at Oates blankly. "You know him?" she asked, surprised.

"Of course. Pitt is the number two man over at NUMA. He's the guy who raised the Titanic for the Defense Department."

"And saved the President's life in Louisiana," added Fawcett.

Jessie noticeably paled. "I had no idea."

"I hope you didn't make him mad," said Oates.

"Perhaps I was a bit rude," she conceded.

"Aren't you interested in drilling for offshore oil below San Diego?"

"Yes. Seismic surveys indicate a vast untapped field. One of our companies has the inside track for the drilling rights. Why do you ask?"

"Don't you know who heads up the Senate committee for oil exploration on government lands?"

"Certainly, it's. . ." Jessie's voice trailed off and her composure melted away.

"Dirk's father," Oates finished. "Senator George Pitt of California. Without his backing and the blessing of NUMA on environmental issues, you don't stand a prayer of winning the drilling rights."

"It would appear," Fawcett said sardonically, "your inside track just washed out."

<<9>>

Thirty minutes later, Pitt rolled the Daimler into his parking stall in front of the tall, solar-glassed building that housed NUMA headquarters. He signed in at the security desk and took the elevator to the tenth floor. When the doors opened, he stepped into a vast electronic maze, comprising the communications and information network of the marine agency.

Hiram Yaeger looked up from behind a horseshoe-shaped desk, whose surface lay unseen beneath a jungle of computer hardware, and smiled. "Hullo, Dirk. All dressed up and no place to go?"

"The party's hostess decided I was persona non grata and made me walk the plank."

"Anybody I know?"

It was Pitt's turn to smile. He looked down at Yaeger. The computer wizard was a throwback to the hippie days of the early seventies. He wore his blond hair long and tied in a ponytail. His beard was untrimmed and kinky with uncontrolled curls. And his standard uniform for work and play was Levi jacket and pants stuffed into scruffy cowboy boots.

Pitt said, "I can't picture you and Jessie LeBaron traveling in the same social circles."

Yaeger gave out a low whistle. "You got booted from a Jessie LeBaron bash? Man, you're some kind of hero to the downtrodden."

"Are you in the mood for an excavation?"

"On her?"

"On him."

"Her husband? The one who's missing?"

"Raymond LeBaron."

"Another moonlight operation?"

"Whatever you want to call it."

"Dirk," Yaeger said, peering over the rims of his granny glasses, "you are a nosy bastard, but I love you just the same. I'm hired to build a world-class computer network and amass an archive on marine science and history, but every time I belch you turn up, wanting to use my creation for shady purposes. Why do I go along? Okay, I'll tell you why. Larceny flows faster in my veins than yours. Now, how deep do you want me to dig?"

"To the bottom of his past. Where he came from. What was the money base for his empire?"

"Raymond LeBaron was pretty secretive about his private life. He may have covered his trail."

"I realize that, but you've pulled skeletons out of the closet before."

Yaeger nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, the Bougainville shipping family a few months ago. A neat little caper, if I do say so."

"One more thing."

"Lay it on me."

"A ship called the Cyclops. Could you pull her history for me?"

"No sweat. Anything else?"

"That should do it," Pitt answered.

Yaeger stared at him. "What's going down this time, old friend? I can't believe you're going after the LeBarons because you were dumped at a society party. Take me, I've been thrown out of the worst sleaze joints in town. And I just accept it."

Pitt laughed. "No revenge. I'm just curious. Jessie LeBaron said something that struck me odd about her husband's disappearance."

"I read about it in the Washington Post. There was a paragraph mentioning you as the hero of the hour, saving LeBaron's blimp with your rope and palm tree trick. So what's the catch?"

"She claimed that her husband wasn't among the dead I found inside the control cabin."

Yaeger paused, his eyes uncomprehending. "Doesn't make sense. If old man LeBaron flew off in that gas bag, it stands to reason he'd still be inside when it turned up."

"Not according to the bereaved wife."

"Think she's got an angle, insurance or financial?"

"Maybe, maybe not. But there is a chance that because the mystery occurred over water, NUMA will be called in to assist in the investigation."

"And we'll already be on first base."

"Something like that."

"Where does the Cyclops fit in the picture?"

"She told me LeBaron was looking for it when he vanished."

Yaeger rose from his chair. "All right then, let's get off the mark. While I design a search program, you study what we have on the ship in our data files."

He led Pitt into a small viewing theater with a large monitor mounted on the far wall and motioned for him to sit behind a console containing a computer keyboard. Then he leaned over Pitt and pressed a series of commands on the keyboard.

"We installed a new system last week. The terminal is hooked into a voice synthesizer."

"A talking computer," said Pitt.

"Yes, it can comprehend over ten thousand verbal commands, make the appropriate reply, and actually carry on a conversation. The voice sounds a little weird, sort of like Hal, the giant computer in the movie 2001. But you get used to it. We call her Hope."

"Hope?"

"Yeah, we hope she'll come up with the right answers."

"Funny"

"I'll be at the main terminal desk if you need help. Just pick up the phone and dial four-seven."

Pitt looked up at the screen. It had a bluish-gray cast. He warily picked up a microphone and spoke into it.

"Hope, my name is Dirk. Are you ready to conduct a search for me?"

God, he felt like an idiot. It was like talking to a tree and expecting a reply.

"Hello, Dirk," replied a vaguely female voice that sounded as if it was coming out of a harmonica. "Ready when you are."

Pitt took a deep breath and made the plunge. "Hope, I'd like you to tell me about a ship named Cyclops."

There was a five-second pause, then the computer said, "You will have to be more specific. My memory disks contain data on five different vessels called Cyclops."

"This one had treasure on board."

"Sorry, none show any treasure in their cargo manifest."

Sorry? Pitt still couldn't believe he was conversing with a machine. "If I may digress for a moment, Hope, allow me to say you're a very bright and most congenial computer."

"Thank you for the compliment, Dirk. In case you're interested, I can also do sound effects, imitate animals, sing-- though not too well-- and pronounce `supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,' even if I haven't been programmed to its exact definition. Would you like me to say it backwards?"

Pitt laughed. "Some other time. Getting back to the Cyclops, the one I'm interested in probably sank in the Caribbean."

"That narrows it down to two. A small steamer that ran aground in Montego Bay, Jamaica, 5 May 1968, and a U.S. Navy collier-- an ore or coal transport-- lost without a trace, between 5 and 10 February 1918."

Raymond LeBaron wouldn't be flying around searching for a ship stranded in a busy harbor only twenty years ago, Pitt reasoned. The tale of the Navy collier came back to him. The loss was touted as one of the great mysteries of the mythical Bermuda Triangle.

"We'll go with the Navy collier," said Pitt.

"If you wish me to print out the data for you, Dirk, press the control button on your keyboard and the letters PT. Also, if you watch the screen I can project whatever photos are available."

Pitt did as he was told and the printer began pounding away. True to her word,' Hope flashed a picture of the Cyclops lying at anchor in an unnamed port.

Although her hull was slender with its old-fashioned straight-up-and-down bow and graceful champagne-glass stern, her superstructure had the look of a child's erector set gone wild. A maze of derricks, spiderwebbed by cables and laced by overhead supports, rose amidships like a dead forest. A long deckhouse ran along the aft part of the ship above the engine room, its roof festooned with towering twin smokestacks and several tall ventilators. Forward, the wheelhouse perched above the main deck like a vanity table on four legs, spotted with a single row of portholes and open beneath. Two high masts with a crossbar protruded from a bridge that could have passed for a football goalpost. She seemed ungainly, an ugly duckling that never made it to swan.

There was also a ghostly quality about her. At first Pitt couldn't put his finger on it, and then it struck him-- oddly, no crew member was visible anywhere on her decks. It was if she were deserted.

Pitt turned from the monitor and scanned the printout of the ship's statistics:

Launched: 7 May 1910 by William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilders, Philadelphia

Tonnage: 19,360 displaced

Length: 542 feet (actually longer than the battleships of her time)

Beam: 65 feet

Draft: 27 feet 8 inches

Speed: 15 knots (3 knots faster than the Liberty ships of World War II)

Armament: Four 4-inch guns

Crew: 246

Master: G. W Worley, Naval Auxiliary Service

Pitt noted that Worley was the Cyclops' captain from the time she was placed in service until she disappeared. He sat back, his mind drifting as he studied the picture of the ship.

"Do you have any other photographs of her?" he asked Hope.

"Three from the same angle, one stern shot, and four of the crew."

"Let's have a look at the crew."

The monitor went black for a moment and soon an image of a man, standing at a ship's railing and holding a little girl's hand, came into view.

"Captain Worley with his daughter," explained Hope.

A huge man with thinning hair, neatly trimmed moustache, and massive hands stood in a dark suit, necktie casually askew outside the jacket, shoes highly shined, staring into a camera that froze his image seventy-five years ago. The little blond girl at his side wore a knee-length jumper and a little hat, and gripped what looked to be a very rigid doll in the shape of a bottle.

"Real name was Johann Wichman," Hope briefed without command. "He was born in Germany and illegally entered the United States when he jumped a merchant ship in San Francisco during the year 1878. How he falsified his records is not known. While commanding the Cyclops, he lived in Norfolk, Virginia, with his wife and daughter."

"Any possibility he was working for the Germans in 1918?"

"Nothing was ever proven. Would you like the reports from naval investigations of the tragedy?"

"Just print them out. I'll study them later."

"The next photo is of Lieutenant David Forbes, the executive officer," said Hope.

The camera had caught Forbes in dress uniform standing beside what Pitt guessed to be a 1916 Cadillac touring car. He had the face of a greyhound, long, narrow nose, pale eyes whose color could not be determined from the black-and-white photograph. His face was clean-shaven, the eyebrows arched, and he had slightly protruding teeth.

"What sort of man was he?" asked Pitt.

"His naval record was unblemished until Worley put him under ship's arrest for insubordination."

"Reason?"

"Captain Worley altered course from one plotted by Lieutenant Forbes and almost wrecked the ship entering Rio. When Forbes demanded to know why, Worley blew up and confined him to quarters."

"Was Forbes still under arrest during the last voyage?"

"Yes."

"Who's next?"

"Lieutenant John Church, second officer."

The photo showed a small, almost frail-looking man in civilian clothes sitting at a table in a restaurant. His face wore the tired look of a farmer after a long day in the fields, yet his dark eyes seemed to advertise a humorous disposition. The graying hair above a large forehead was brushed back over small ears.

"He seems older than the others," observed Pitt.

"Actually only twenty-nine," said Hope. "Joined the Navy when he was sixteen and worked his way up through the ranks."

"Did he have problems with Worley?"

"Nothing in the file."

The final photograph was of two men standing at attention in a courtroom. There was no sign of apprehension in their faces-- if anything, they appeared sullen and defiant. The one on the left was tall and rangy with heavily muscled arms. The other one had the size and shape of a grizzly bear.

"This picture was taken at the court-martial of Fireman First Class James Coker and Fireman Second Class Barney DeVoe for the murder of Fireman Third Class Oscar Stewart. All three men were stationed aboard the U.S. cruiser Pittsburgh. Coker, on the left, was sentenced to death by hanging, which was carried out in Brazil. DeVoe, on the right, was sentenced to fifty to ninety-nine years in the naval prison at Portsmouth, New Hampshire."

"What's their connection with the Cyclops?" Pitt inquired.

"The Pittsburgh was in Rio de Janeiro when the murder occurred. When Captain Worley reached port, he was instructed to transport DeVoe and four other prisoners in the Cyclops' brig to the United States."

"And they were on board at the end."

` Yes.'

"No other pictures of the crew?"

"They are probably available in family albums and other private sources, but this is all I have in my library."

"Tell me about the events leading to the disappearance."

"Verbal or print?"

"Can you print it out and talk at the same time?"

"Sorry, I can only perform such functions in sequence. Which do you prefer first?"

"Verbal."

"Very well. One moment while I assemble the data."

Pitt was beginning to feel drowsy. It had been a long day. He used the pause to dial Yaeger and ask for a cup of coffee.

"How are you and Hope getting along?"

"I'm almost beginning to think she's real," Pitt answered.

"Just so long you don't start fantasizing about her nonexistent body."

"I'm not at that stage yet."

"To know her is to love her."

"How are you doing on LeBaron?"

"What I was afraid of," said Yaeger. "He pretty much buried his past. No insight, only statistics up to the time he became the Wall Street whiz."

"Anything interesting?"

"Not really. He came from a fairly affluent family. His father owned a chain of hardware stores. I get the idea Raymond and his father didn't get along. There's no mention of his family in any newspaper biographies after he became the financial whiz."

"Did you find out how he made his first big bucks?"

"That area is pretty vague. He and a partner by the name of Kronberg had a marine salvage company in the middle nineteen-fifties. Seems they scratched along for a few years and then went broke. Two years later, Raymond launched his publication."

"The Prosperteer."

"Right."

"Is there any mention of where his backing came from?"

"None," replied Yaeger. "By the way, Jessie is his second wife. His first was named Hillary. She died a few years ago. Nothing on her at all."

"Keep hunting."

Pitt hung up as Hope said, "I'm ready with the data on the ill-fated final voyage of the Cyclops."

"Let's hear it."

"She put to sea from Rio de Janeiro on 16 February 1918, bound for Baltimore, Maryland. On board were her regular crew of 15 officers and 231 men, 57 men from the cruiser Pittsburgh, who were being rotated to the Norfolk Naval Base for reassignment, the 5 prisoners including DeVoe, and the American consul general at Rio, Alfred L. Morean Gottschalk, who was returning to Washington. Her cargo was 11,000 tons of manganese ore.

"After a brief call at the port of Bahia to pick up mail, the ship made an unscheduled stop on 4 March, when she entered Carlisle Bay on the island of Barbados and dropped anchor. Here, Worley took on extra coal and provisions, which he claimed were necessary to continue the voyage to Baltimore, but was later considered to be quite excessive. After the ship was lost at sea, the American consul in Barbados reported a number of suspicious rumors regarding Worley's unusual action, strange events on board, and a possible mutiny. The last anyone saw of the Cyclops and the men on board was 4 March 1918, when she steamed away from Barbados."

"There was no further contact?" asked Pitt.

"Twenty-four hours later, a lumber freighter called the Crogan Castle reported her bow crushed by an immense freak wave. Her radio signals for assistance were answered by the Cyclops. The final words from the collier were her call number and the message, `We are fifty miles due south of you and coming at full steam.' "

"Nothing else?"

"That was it."

"Did the Crogan Castle give her position?"

"Yes, it was reported as latitude twenty-three degrees, thirty minutes north by longitude seventy-nine degrees, twenty-one minutes west, which put her about twenty miles southeast from a bank of shallow reefs called the Anguilla Cays."

"Was the Crogan Castle lost also?"

"No, the records say she limped into Havana."

"Any wreckage of the Cyclops turn up?"

"An extensive search by the Navy found nothing."

Pitt hesitated as Yaeger entered the viewing room, set a cup of coffee by the console, and silently retreated. He took a few sips and asked Hope to reshow the photo of the Cyclops. The ship materialized on the monitor's screen and he stared at it thoughtfully.

He picked up the phone, punched a number, and waited. A digital clock on the console read 11:55, but the voice that answered sounded bright and cheerful.

"Dirk!" boomed Dr. Raphael O'Meara. "What the hell is going down? You caught me at a good time. I just came home this morning from a dig in Costa Rica."

"Find another truckload of potsherds?"

"Only the richest cache of pre-Columbian art discovered to date. Amazing pieces, some dating back to three hundred B.C."

"Too bad you can't keep them."

"All my finds go to the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica."

"You're a generous man, Raphael."

"I don't donate them, Dirk. The governments where my finds are made preserve the artifacts as part of their national heritage. But why bore an old waterlogged relic like you. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?"

"I need your expertise on a piece of treasure."

"You know, of course," O'Meara said, his tone edged with a touch of seriousness, "treasure is an unspeakable word to a respected archeologist."

"We all carry an albatross," said Pitt. "Can you meet me for a drink?"

"Now? Do you realize what time it is?"

"I happen to know you're a night owl. Make it easy on yourself. Someplace close to your house."

"How about the Old Angler's Inn on MacArthur Boulevard? Say in half an hour."

"Sounds good."

"Can you tell me what treasure you're interested in?"

"The one everyone dreams about."

"Oh? And which one is that?"

"Tell you when I see you."

Pitt hung up and gazed at the Cyclops. There was an eerie loneliness about her. He could not help wondering what secrets she took with her to a watery grave.

"Can I provide any further data?" asked Hope, interrupting his morbid reverie. "Or do you wish to terminate?"

"I think we can call it quits," he replied. "Thank you, Hope. I wish I could give you a big kiss."

"I am grateful for the compliment, Dirk. But I am not physiologically capable of receiving a kiss."

"You're still a sweetheart in my book."

"Come up and use me anytime."

Pitt laughed. "Goodnight, Hope."

"Goodnight, Dirk."

If only she was real, he thought with a dreamy sigh.

<<10>>

"Jack Daniel's neat," Raphael O'Meara said cheerfully. "Make that a double. Best medicine I know to clear the brain of jungle rot."

"How long were you in Costa Rica?" asked Pitt.

"Three months. Rained the whole time."

"Bombay gin on the rocks with a twist," Pitt said to the barmaid.

"So you're joining the greedy ranks of the sea scavengers," O'Meara said, the words emanating through a thick Gabby Hayes beard that hid his face from the nose down. "Dirk Pitt a treasure hunter. I never thought I'd see the day."

"My interest is purely academic."

"Sure, that's what they all say. Take my advice and forget it. More loot has been poured into underwater treasure hunts than was ever found. I can count on one hand the number of lucky discoveries that paid a profit in the last eighty years. The adventure, excitement, and riches, nothing but hype and all myth."

"I agree."

O'Meara's barbed-wire eyebrows narrowed. "So what is it you want to know?"

"You familiar with Raymond LeBaron?"

"Old rich and reckless Raymond, the financial genius who publishes the Prosperteer?"

"The same. He disappeared a couple of weeks ago on a blimp flight near the Bahamas."

"How could anybody disappear in a blimp?"

"Somehow he managed. You must have heard or read something about it."

O'Meara shook his head. "I haven't watched TV or seen a newspaper in ninety days."

The drinks were brought, and Pitt briefly explained the strange circumstances surrounding the mystery. The crowd was beginning to thin and they had the bar mostly to themselves.

"And you think LeBaron was flying around in an old gas bag looking for a shipwreck loaded to the gills with the mother lode."

"According to his wife, Jessie."

"What ship?"

"The Cyclops."

"I know about the Cyclops. A Navy collier that vanished seventy-one years ago. I don't recall any report of riches on board."

"Apparently LeBaron thought so."

"What sort of treasure?"

"The El Dorado."

"You've got to be kidding."

"I'm only repeating what I was told."

O'Meara went quiet for a long moment, his eyes taking on a faraway look. "El hombre dorado," he said at last. "Spanish for the golden man or the gilded one. The legend-- some call it a curse-- has fired imaginations for four hundred and fifty years."

"Is there any truth to it?" asked Pitt.

"Every legend is based on fact, but like all the others before and since, this one has been distorted and embellished into a fairy tale. El Dorado has inspired the longest continuing treasure hunt on record. Thousands of men have died searching for a glimpse of it."

"Tell me how the tale originated."

Another Jack Daniel's and Bombay gin arrived. Pitt laughed as O'Meara downed the water chaser first. Then the archeologist made himself comfortable and stared into another time.

"The Spanish conquistadores were the first to hear of a gilded man who ruled an incredibly wealthy kingdom somewhere in the mountainous jungles east of the Andes. Rumors described him as living in a secluded city built of gold with streets paved in emeralds and guarded by a fierce army of beautiful Amazons. Made Oz sound like a slum. Extremely overvalued, of course. But in reality there were a number of El Dorados-- a long line of kings who worshiped a demon god who lived in Lake Guatavita, Colombia. When a new monarch took command of the tribal empire, his body was painted with resinous gums and then coated with gold dust, thus the gilded man. Then he was placed on a ceremonial raft, piled high with gold and precious stones, and rowed into the middle of the lake, where he proceeded to pitch the riches into the water as an offering to the god, whose name escapes me."

"Was the treasure ever raised?"

"There were any number of attempts to drain the lake, but they all failed. In 1965 the government of Colombia declared Guatavita an area of cultural interest and banned all salvage operations. A pity, when you consider that estimates of the wealth on the bottom of the lake run between one hundred and three hundred million dollars."

"And the golden city?"

"Never found," said O'Meara, signaling the barmaid for another round. "Many looked and many died. Nikolaus Federmann, Ambrosius Dalfinger, Sebastian de Belalcazar, Gonzalo and Herman Jimenez de Quesada, all sought El Dorado but only found the curse. So did Sir Walter Raleigh. After his second fruitless expedition, King James put his head on the block, literally. The fabulous city of El Dorado and the greatest treasure of them all remained lost."

"Let's back up a minute," said Pitt. "The treasure at the bottom of the lake is not lost."

"That's in scattered pieces," explained O'Meara. "The second one, the grand prize, the bonanza at the end of the rainbow, remains hidden to this day. With maybe two exceptions, no outsider has ever laid eyes on it. The only description came from a monk who wandered out of the jungle into a Spanish settlement on the Orinoco River in 1675. Before dying a week later, he told of being on a Portuguese expedition looking for diamond mines. Out of eighty men, he was the only survivor. He claimed they'd stumbled into a deserted city surrounded by high cliffs and guarded by a tribe who called themselves Zanonas. The party lived in the city for three months, but one by one the men began to die off. Too late they discovered the Zanonas were not as friendly as they made out, but were cannibals, poisoning the Portuguese and eating them. The monk alone managed to escape. He described massive temples and buildings, strange inscriptions, and the legendary treasure that sent so many of its hunters to their graves."

"A true golden man," Pitt speculated. "A statue."

"You're close," said O'Meara. "Damned close, but you missed on the sex.'

"Sex?"

"La mujer dorada, the golden woman," O'Meara replied. "Or more commonly, La Dorada. You see, the name first applied to a man and a ceremony, later to a city, and finally to an empire. Over the years it became a term for any place where riches could be found on the ground. Like so many descriptions the feminists hate, the masculine myth became generic, while the feminine was forgotten. Ready for another drink?"

"No, thanks. I'll nurse this one."

O'Meara ordered another Jack Daniel's. "Anyway, you know the story behind the Taj Mahal. A Mogul ruler erected the ornate tomb as a monument to his wife. Same with a pre-Columbian, South American king. His name is not recorded, but, so the legend goes, she was the most beloved of the hundreds of women at his court. Then an event occurred in the sky. Probably either an eclipse or Halley's comet. And the priests called on him to sacrifice her to appease the angry gods. Life was no fun in those days. So she was killed, heart torn out in an elaborate ceremony."

"I thought only the Aztecs went in for heart removal."

"The Aztecs didn't have a monopoly on human sacrifice. The upshot was the king called together his artisans and ordered them to build a statue of her likeness so he could elevate her to a god."

"Did the monk describe it?"

"In vivid detail, if his story can be believed. She stands nude, nearly six feet tall, on a pedestal of rose quartz. Her body is solid gold. God, it must weigh at least a ton. Imbedded in the chest, where the heart should be, is a great ruby, judged to be in the neighborhood of twelve hundred carats."

"I don't profess to be an expert," said Pitt, "but I know that rubies are the most valuable of all the gemstones, and one of thirty carats is a rarity. Twelve hundred carats is unbelievable."

"That's not even the half of it," O'Meara continued. "The entire head of the statue is one gigantic carved emerald, deep blue-green and flawless. I can't begin to guess the carat weight, but it would have to hit the scales around thirty pounds."

"More like forty if you include a likeness of the hair."

"What's the largest known emerald?"

Pitt thought a moment. "Certainly no more than ten pounds."

"Can't you just see her standing under spotlights in the main lobby of Washington's Museum of Natural History," O'Meara said wistfully.

"I can only wonder at the value on today's market."

"You could safely say it's priceless."

"There was another man who saw the statue?" Pitt asked.

"Colonel Ralph Morehouse Sigler, a real character from the old explorer school. An engineer in the English army, he tramped around the empire, surveying boundaries and building forts throughout Africa and India. He was also a trained geologist and spent his leave time prospecting. He was either damned lucky or damned good, discovering an extensive chromite deposit in South Africa and several precious gemstone veins in Indochina. He became wealthy but didn't have time to enjoy it. The Kaiser marched into France and he was ordered to the Western Front to build fortifications."

"So he didn't enter South America until after the war."

"No, in the summer of 1916, he stepped off the boat at Georgetown, in what was then British Guiana. It seems some hotshot in the British treasury got the bright idea of sending out expeditions around the world to find and open gold mines to finance the war. Sigler was recalled from the front and ordered into the South American interior."

"You think he knew the monk's story?" Pitt asked.

"Nothing in his diaries or papers indicates he ever believed in a lost city. The guy was no wild-eyed treasure hunter. He was after raw minerals. Historic artifacts never interested him. Are you hungry, Dirk?"

"Yes, come to think of it. I was cheated out of dinner."

"We're long past the dinner hour, but if we ask nice I'm sure the kitchen can rustle up some appetizers."

O'Meara gestured for the barmaid and after pleading his case persuaded her to serve them a platter of shrimp with cocktail sauce.

"Hits the spot," said Pitt.

"I could eat these little devils all day long," O'Meara agreed. "Now, where were we?"

"Sigler was about to find La Dorada."

"Oh, yes. After forming a party of twenty men, mostly British soldiers, Sigler plunged into the uncharted wilds. For months, nothing was heard of them. The British began to sense disaster and sent out several search parties, but none found a trace of the missing men. At last, nearly two years later, an American expedition, surveying for a railroad, stumbled upon Sigler five hundred miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro. He was alone, the only survivor."

"Seems like an incredible distance from British Guiana."

"Almost two thousand miles from his jump-off point as the crow flies."

"What kind of shape was he in?"

"More dead than alive, according to the engineers who found him. They carried Sigler to a village that had a small hospital and sent off a message to the nearest American consulate. A few weeks later a relief party arrived from Rio."

"American or British?"

"An odd twist there," answered O'Meara. "The British consulate claimed they were never notified of Sigler's reappearance. Gossip had it that the American consul general himself showed up to question him. Whatever happened, Sigler dropped from sight. The story is he escaped from the hospital and wandered back into the jungle."

"Doesn't figure that he'd turn his back on civilization after two years of hell," said Pitt.

O'Meara shrugged. "Who can say?"

"Did Sigler give an account of his expedition before he disappeared?"

"Raved in delirium most of the time. Witnesses said afterward that he babbled about finding a huge city surrounded by steep cliffs and overgrown by jungle. His description pretty much matched the Portuguese monk's. He also drew a rough sketch of the golden woman that was saved by a nurse and now lies in Brazil's national library. I had a look at it while researching another project. The real thing must be an awesome sight."

"So it remains buried in the jungle."

"Ah, there's the rub," sighed O'Meara. "Sigler claimed he and his men stole the statue and dragged it twenty miles to a river, fighting off the Zanona Indians the whole trip. By the time they built a raft, heaved La Dorada on board, and pushed off, there were only three of them left. Later one died of his injuries and the other was lost in a stretch of rapids."

Pitt was fascinated by what O'Meara was telling him, but he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. "The obvious question is, where did Sigler stash the golden woman?"

"If I only knew," replied O'Meara.

"Didn't he give a clue?"

"The nurse thought he said the raft came apart and the statue dropped into the river a few hundred yards from where the surveyors' party found him. But don't get your hopes up. He was muttering nonsense. Treasure hunters have been dragging metal detectors up and down that river for years without a reading a tick."

Pitt swirled the ice cubes around inside his glass. He knew, he knew what happened to Ralph Morehouse Sigler and La Dorada.

"The American consul general," Pitt said slowly, "he was the last person to see Sigler alive?"

"The puzzle gets cloudy at this point, but as near as anyone can tell, the answer is yes."

"Let me see if I can fill in the pieces. This took place in January and February of 1918. Right?"

O'Meara nodded, and then he gave Pitt a queer stare.

"And the consul general's name was Alfred Gottschalk, who died a few weeks later on the Cyclops. Right?"

"You know this?" said O'Meara, his eyes uncomprehending.

"Gottschalk probably heard of Sigler's mission through his counterpart at the British consulate. When he received the message from the railroad surveyors that Sigler was alive, he kept the news to himself and headed into the interior, hoping to interview the explorer and steal a jump on the British by turning over any valuable information to his own government. What he learned must have shattered any code of ethics he still retained. Gottschalk decided to grab the bonanza for himself.

"He found and raised the golden statue from the river and then transported it, along with Sigler, to Rio de Janeiro. He covered his tracks by buying off anyone who might talk about Sigler, and, if my guess is correct, killing off the men who helped him recover the statue. Then, using his influence with the Navy, he smuggled them both on board the Cyclops. The ship was lost and the secret died with her."

O'Meara's eyes deepened in curious interest. "Now that," he said, "you can't possibly know."

"Why else would LeBaron be looking for what he thought was La Dorada?"

"You make a good case," O'Meara admitted. "But you left the door open to a moot question. Why didn't Gottschalk simply kill Sigler after he found the statue? Why keep the Englishman alive?"

"Elementary. The consul general was consumed by gold fever. He wanted La Dorada and the emerald city too. Sigler was the only person alive who could give him directions or lead him there."

"I like the way you think, Dirk. Your wild-assed theory calls for another drink."

"Too late, the bar's closed. I think they'd like us to leave so the help can get home to bed."

O'Meara mimicked a crestfallen expression. "That's one nice thing about primitive living. No hours, no curfew." He took a final swallow from his glass. "Well, what are your plans?"

"Nothing complicated," said Pitt, smiling. "I'm going to find the Cyclops."

<<11>>

The President was an early riser, awakening at about 6 A.M. and exercising for thirty minutes before showering and eating a light breakfast. In a ritual going back to the days soon after his honeymoon, he gently eased out of bed and quietly dressed while his wife slept on. She was a night person and could not force herself to rise before 7:30.

He slipped on a sweatsuit and then removed a small leather briefcase from a closet in the adjoining sitting room. After giving his wife a tender kiss on the cheek, he took the back stairway down to the White House gym beneath the west terrace.

The spacious room, containing a variety of exercise equipment, was empty except for a thick-bodied man who lay on his back bench pressing a set of weights. With each lift he grunted like a woman in childbirth. The sweat beaded from a round head that sprouted a thick mat of ivory hair styled in a short crewcut. The stomach was immense and hairy, the arms and legs protruding like heavy tree limbs. He had the look of a carnival wrestler long past his prime.

"Good morning, Ira," said the President. "I'm glad you could make it."

The fat man set the weight bar on a pair of hooks above his head, rose from the bench, and squeezed the President's hand. "Good to see you, Vince."

The President smiled. No bowing, no scraping, no greeting of "Mr. President." Tough, stoical Ira Hagen, he mused. The gritty old undercover agent never gave an inch to anybody.

"I hope you don't mind meeting like this."

Hagen uttered a coarse laugh that echoed off the gym walls. "I've been briefed in worse places."

"How's the restaurant business?"

"Showing a nice profit since we switched from continental gourmet to downhome American food. Food costs were eating us alive. Twenty entrees with expensive sauces and herbs didn't cut it. So now we specialize in only five menu items the higher-class restaurants don't serve-- ham, chicken, fish casserole, stew, and meatloaf."

"You may have something," said the President. "I haven't bitten into a good meatloaf since I was a kid."

"Our customers go for it, especially since we retained the fancy service and intimate atmosphere. My waiters all wear tuxedos, candles on tables, stylish settings, food presented in a continental manner. And the best part is the diners eat faster, so there's a quicker turnover on tables."

"And you're breaking even on the food while taking a profit on the booze and wine, right?"

Hagen laughed again. "Vince, you're okay. I don't care what the news media say about you. When you're an old has-been politician look me up, and we'll open a chain of beaneries together."

"Do you miss criminal investigation, Ira?"

"Sometimes."

"You were the best undercover operative the justice Department ever had," the President said, "until Martha died."

"Gathering evidence on slime for the government didn't seem to matter anymore. Besides, I had three daughters to raise, and the demands of the job kept me away from home for weeks at a time."

"The girls doing all right?"

"Just fine. As you well know, all three of your nieces have happy marriages and presented me with five grandchildren."

"A pity Martha couldn't have seen them. Of my four sisters and two brothers, she was my favorite."

"You didn't fly me here from Denver on an Air Force jet just to talk old times," said Hagen. "What's going down?"

"Have you lost your touch?"

"Have you forgotten how to ride a bicycle?"

It was the President's turn to laugh. "Ask a stupid question. . ."

"The reflexes are a mite slower, but the gray matter still turns at a hundred percent."

The President tossed him the briefcase. "Digest this while I hike a couple of miles on the treadmill."

Hagen wiped his sweating brow with a towel and sat on a stationary bicycle, his bulk threatening to bend the frame. He opened the leather case and didn't look up from reading the contents until the President had walked 1.6 miles.

"What do you think?" the President asked finally.

Hagen shrugged, still reading. "Make a great pilot for a TV show. Closet funding, an impenetrable security veil, covert activity on an immense scale, an undetected moon base. The stuff H. G. Wells would have loved."

"Do you figure it's a hoax?"

"Let's say I want to believe it. What flag-waving taxpayer wouldn't? Makes our intelligence community look like deaf and blind mutants. But if it is a hoax, where's the motive?"

"Other than a grand scheme to defraud the government, I can't think of any."

"Let me finish reading. This last file is in longhand."

"My recollection of what was said on the golf course. Sorry about the chicken scratch, but I never learned to type."

Hagen stared at him questioningly. "You've told no one about this, not even your security council?"

"Perhaps I'm paranoid, but this `Joe' character slipped through my Secret Service cordon like a fox through a barnyard. And he claimed members of the `inner core' were highly placed at NASA and the Pentagon. It stands to reason they've also penetrated the intelligence agencies and my White House staff as well."

Hagen studied the President's report of the golf course meeting intently, going back occasionally to check the Jersey Colony file. Finally he hoisted his body off the bicycle and sat on a bench, looking at the President.

"This photo blowup of a man sitting next to you in a golf cart. Is that Joe?"

"Yes. When returning to the clubhouse, I spotted a reporter from the Washington Post who had been photographing my golf game through a telescopic lens. I asked him to do me a favor and send an enlargement over to the White House so I could autograph it for my caddy."

"Good thinking." Hagen peered closely at the picture and then set it aside. "What do you want me to do, Vince?"

"Dig out the names of the `inner core.' "

"Nothing else? No information or evidence on the Jersey Colony project?"

"When I know who they are," the President said in a dead voice, "they'll be rounded up and interrogated. Then we'll see how deep their tentacles reach."

"If you want my opinion, I'd pin a medal on every one of those guys."

"I may just do that," the President replied with a cold smile. "But not before I stop them from kicking off a bloody battle for the moon."

"So it adds up to a presidential cutout situation. You can't trust anyone in normal intelligence circles and you're hiring me to be your private field intelligence agent."

"Yes."

"What's my deadline?"

"The Russian spacecraft is set to land on the moon nine days from now. I need every hour I can steal to prevent a fight between their cosmonauts and our moon colonists that might spread into a space conflict that none of us could stop. The `inner core' must be convinced to back off. I've got to have them under wraps, Ira, at least twenty-four hours before the Russians touch down."

"Eight days isn't much to find nine men."

The President gave a helpless shrug. "Nothing comes easy."

"A certificate saying I'm your brother-in-law won't be enough to pass me through legal and bureaucratic roadblocks. I'll require a concrete cover."

"I leave it to you to create one. An Alpha Two clearance should get you through most doors."

"Not bad," said Hagen. "The Vice President only carries a Three."

"I'll give you the number of a safe phone line. Report to me day or night. Understood?"

"Understood."

"Questions?"

"Raymond LeBaron, dead or alive?"

"Undecided. The wife refused to identify the body found in the blimp as his. She was right. I asked the FBI director, Sam Emmett, to take possession of the remains from Dade County, Florida. They're over at Walter Reed Army Hospital now, undergoing examination."

"Can I see the county coroner's report?"

The President shook his head in wonderment. "You never miss a trick, do you, Ira?"

"Obviously there had to be one."

"I'll see you get a copy."

"And the lab results at Walter Reed."

"That too."

Hagen stuffed the files back into the briefcase, but left out the photo from the golf course. He studied the images for perhaps the fourth time. "You realize, of course, Raymond LeBaron may never be found."

"I've considered that possibility."

"Nine little Indians. And then there were eight. . . make that seven."

"Seven?"

Hagen held up the photo in front of the President's eyes. "Don't you recognize him?"

"Frankly, no. But he did say we knew each other many years ago." "Our high school baseball team. You played first base. I was left field and Leonard Hudson caught."

"Hudson!" The President gasped incredulously. "Joe is Leo Hudson. But Leo was a fat kid. Weighed at least two hundred pounds."

"He became a health nut. Lost sixty pounds and ran marathons. You were never sentimental about the old gang. I still keep track of them. Don't you remember? Leo was the school brain. Won all sorts of awards for his science projects. Later he graduated with honors at Stanford and became director of the Harvey Pattenden National Physics Laboratory in Oregon. Invented and pioneered rocket and space systems before anyone else was working in the field."

"Bring him in, Ira. Hudson is the key to the others."

"I'll need a shovel."

"You saying he's buried?"

"Like in dead and buried."

"When?"

"Back in 1965. A light-plane crash in the Columbia River."

"Then who is Joe?"

"Leonard Hudson."

"But you said--"

"His body was never found. Convenient, huh?"

"He faked his death," the President said as if beholding a revelation. "The son of a bitch faked his death so he could go underground to ramrod the Jersey Colony project."

"A brilliant idea when you think about it. No one to answer to. No way he could be tied to a clandestine program. Disguise himself as any character who could be used to his advantage. A nonperson can accomplish far more than the average taxpayer whose name, birthmarks, and nasty habits are stored in a thousand computers."

There was a silence, then the President's grim voice "Find him, Ira. Find and bring Leonard Hudson to me before all hell breaks loose."

Secretary of State Douglas Oates peered through his reading glasses at the last page of a thirty-page letter. He closely examined the structure of each paragraph, trying to read between the lines. At last he looked up at his deputy secretary, Victor Wykoff.

"Looks genuine to me."

"Our experts on the subject think so too," said Wykoff. "The semantics, the rambling flow, the disjointed sentences, all fit the usual pattern."

"No denying it sounds like Fidel all right," Oates said quietly. "However, it's the tone of the letter that bothers me. You almost get the impression he's begging."

"I don't think so. More like he's trying to stress utmost secrecy with a healthy dose of urgency thrown in."

"The consequences of his proposal are staggering."

"My staff has studied it from every angle," said Wykoff. "Castro has nothing to gain from creating a hoax."

"You say he went through devious lengths to get the document into our hands."

Wykoff nodded. "Crazy as it sounds, the two couriers, who delivered it to our field office in Miami, claim they sneaked from Cuba to the United States on board a blimp."

<<12>>

The barren mountains and the shadowy ridges on the moon's craters leaped out at Anastas Rykov as he peered through the twin lenses of a stereoscope. Beneath the eyes of the Soviet geophysicist the desolate lunar landscape unreeled in three dimensions and vivid color. Taken from thirty-four miles up, the details were strikingly sharp. Solitary pebbles, measuring less than one inch across, were visually distinct.

Rykov lay face downward on a pad, studying the photographic montage that slowly rolled beneath to the stereoscope on two wide reels. The process was similar to a motion picture director editing film, only more comfortable. His hand rested on a small control unit that could stop the reels and magnify whatever area he was scrutinizing.

The images had been received from sophisticated devices on a Russian spacecraft that had circumnavigated the moon. Mirrorlike scanners reflected the lunar surface into a prism that broke it down into spectrum wavelengths that were digitized into 263 different shades of gray, black beginning at 263 and fading to white at zero. Next, the spacecraft's computer converted them into a quiltwork of picture elements on high-density tape. After the data was retrieved from the orbiting spacecraft, it was printed in black-and-white on a negative by laser and filtered with blue, red, and green wavelengths. Then it was computer enhanced in color on two continuous sheets of photographic paper that were overlapped for stereoscopic interpretation.

Rykov raised his glasses and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was 11:57 PM. He'd been analyzing the peaks and valleys of the moon with only a few catnaps for nine days and nights. He readjusted his glasses and ran both hands through a dense carpet of oily black hair, dully realizing he hadn't bathed or changed his clothes since beginning the project.

He shook away the exhaustion and dutifully returned to his work, examining a small area on the far side of the moon that was volcanic in origin. Only two inches of the photo roll remained before it mysteriously ended. He had not been informed by his superiors of the reason for the sudden cutoff, but assumed it was a malfunction of the scanning gear.

The surface was pockmarked and wrinkled, like pimpled skin under a strong magnifying glass, and appeared more beechnut brown than gray in color. The steady bombardment of meteorites through the ages had left crater gouged on crater, scar crossing scar.

Rykov almost missed it. His eyes detected an unnatural oddity, but his tired mind nearly ignored the signal. Wearily he backed the image and magnified a grid on the edge of a steep ridge soaring from the floor of a small crater. Three tiny objects came into crisp focus.

What he saw was unbelievable. Rykov pulled back from the stereoscope and took a deep breath, clearing the creeping fog from his brain. Then he looked again.

They were still there, but one object was a rock. The other two were human figures.

Rykov was transfixed by what he saw. Then the shock set in and his hands began to tremble and his stomach felt as though it had been twisted in a knot. Shaken, he climbed off the pad, walked over to a desk, and opened a small booklet containing private phone numbers of the Soviet Military Space Command. He misdialed twice before he connected with the correct number.

A voice slurred from vodka answered. "What is it?"

"General Maxim Yasenin?"

"Yes, who's this?"

"We've never met. My name is Anastas Rykov. I'm a geophysicist on the Cosmos Lunar Project."

The commander of Soviet military space missions made no attempt to hide his irritation over Rykov's intrusion on his privacy. "Why in hell are you calling me this time of night?"

Rykov fully realized he was overstepping his bounds, but he didn't hesitate. "While analyzing pictures taken by Selenos 4, I've stumbled on something that defies belief. I thought you should be first to be informed."

"Are you drunk, Rykov?"

"No, General. Tired but Siberian sober."

"Unless you are a complete fool, you must know you are in deep trouble for going over the heads of your superiors."

"This is too important to share with anyone beneath your level of authority."

"Sleep on it and you won't be so brash in the morning," said Yasenin. "I'll do you a favor and forget the whole matter. Goodnight."

"Wait!" Rykov demanded, throwing caution aside. "If you dismiss my call, I will have no choice but to turn my discovery over to Vladimir Polevoi."

Rykov's statement was greeted by an icy silence. Finally Yasenin said, "What makes you think the chief of state security would listen to a crazy man?"

"When he checked my dossier, he would find I am a respected party member and a scientist who is far from lunacy."

"Oh?" Yasenin asked, his irritation turning to curiosity. He decided to pin Rykov down. "All right. I'll hear you out. What's so vital to the interest of Mother Russia that it can't go through prescribed channels?"

Rykov spoke very calmly. "I have proof that someone is on the moon."

Forty-five minutes later, General Yasenin strode into the photo analysis laboratory of the Geophysical Space Center. Big, beefy, and red of face, he wore a rumpled uniform that was ablaze with decorations. The hair was smoke-gray, the eyes steady and hard. He walked quietly, his head thrust out as if stalking a prey.

"You Rykov?" he asked without prelude.

"Yes," Rykov said simply but firmly.

They stared at each other a moment, neither making any attempt at shaking hands. Finally, Rykov cleared his throat and motioned toward the stereoscope.

"This way, General," he said. "Please lie prone on the leather cushion and look through the eyepiece."

As Yasenin positioned himself over the photo montage he asked, "What am I searching for?"

"Focus on the small area I've circled," replied Rykov.

The general adjusted the lenses to his vision and peered downward, his face impassive. After a full minute, he looked up strangely, then bent over the stereoscope again. At last he slowly rose and stared at Rykov, eyes stark in open astonishment.

"This is not a photographic trick?" he asked dumbly.

"No, General. What you see is real. Two human forms, wearing encapsulated suits, are aiming some sort of device at Selenos 4."

Yasenin's mind could not accept what his eyes saw to be true. "It's not impossible. Where do they come from?"

Rykov shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. If they're not United States astronauts, they can only be aliens."

"I do not believe in supernatural fairy tales."

"But how could the Americans launch men to the moon without the event leaking to the world news media or our intelligence people?"

"Suppose they left men behind and stockpiled material during the Apollo program. Such an effort might be possible."

"Their last known lunar landing was by Apollo 17 in 1972," Rykov recalled. "No human could survive the harsh lunar conditions for seventeen years without being resupplied."

"I can think of no one else," Yasenin insisted.

He returned to the stereoscope and intently studied the human forms standing in the crater. The sun's glare was coming from the right, throwing their shadows to the left. Their suits were white, and he could make out the dark green viewports on the helmets. They were of a design unfamiliar to him. Yasenin could clearly distinguish footprints leading into a pitch-black shadow cast by the crater's rim.

"I know what you're looking for, General," said Rykov, "but I've already examined the landscape on the floor of the crater and cannot find any sign of their spacecraft."

"Perhaps they climbed down from the top?"

"That's a sheer drop of over a thousand feet."

"I'm at a loss to explain any of this," Yasenin admitted quietly.

"Please look closely at the device they're both holding and pointing at Selenos 4. It seems to be a large camera with an extremely long telephoto lens."

"No," said Yasenin. "You're treading in my territory now. Not a camera but a weapon."

"A laser?"

"Nothing so advanced. Strikes me as a hand-held surface-to-air missile system of American manufacture. A Lariat type 40, I should say. Homes in with a guidance beam, ten-mile range on earth, probably much more in the moon's rarefied atmosphere. Became operational with NATO forces about six years ago. So much for your alien theory."

Rykov was awed. "Every ounce of weight is precious in space flight. Why carry something so heavy and useless as a rocket launcher?"

"The men in the crater found a purpose. They used it against Selenos 4."

Rykov thought a moment. "That would explain why the scanners stopped operating a minute later. They were damaged

"By a hit from a rocket," Yasenin finished.

"We were fortunate the scanners finally relayed the digitized data before it crashed."

"A pity the crew were not so lucky."

Rykov stared at the general, not sure he'd heard right. "Selenos 4 was unmanned."

Yasenin pulled a slim gold case from his coat, selected a cigarette, and lit it with a lighter embedded in the top. Then he slid the case back into a breast pocket.

"Yes, of course, Selenos 4 was unmanned."

"But you said

Yasenin smiled coldly. "I said nothing."

The message was clear. Rykov valued his position too much to pursue the subject. He simply nodded.

"Do you wish a report on what we've seen here tonight?" Rykov asked.

"The original, no copies, on my desk by ten o'clock tomorrow. And, Rykov, consider this a state secret of the highest priority."

"I will confide in no one but you, General."

"Good man. There may be party honor in this for you."

Rykov wasn't going to hold his breath waiting for the award, yet he could not suppress a glow of pride in his work.

Yasenin returned to the stereoscope, drawn to the image of the intruders on the moon. "So the fabled star wars have begun," he murmured to himself. "And the Americans have launched the first blow."

<<13>>

Pitt rejected any thought of lunch, and opened one of several granola bars he kept in his desk. Fumbling with the wrapper, held over a wastebasket to catch the crumbs, he kept his concentration locked on a large nautical chart spread across the desk. The chart's tendency to curl was held down by a memo pad and two books on historic shipwrecks that were opened to chapters on the Cyclops. The chart covered a large area of the Old Bahama Channel, flanked on the south by the Archipelago de Camaguey, a group of scattered islands off the coast of Cuba, and the shallow waters of the Great Bahama Bank to the north. The upper left corner of the chart took in the Cay Sal Bank, whose southeastern tip included the Anguilla Cays.

He sat back and took a bite out of the granola bar. Then he bent over the chart again, sharpened a pencil, and picked up a pair of dividers. Setting the needle tips of the dividers on the scale printed on the bottom of the chart, he measured off twenty nautical miles and carefully marked the distance from the tip of the Anguilla Cays with a penciled dot. Next, he described a short arc another fifty miles to the southeast. He labeled the top dot Crogan Castle and the lower arc Cyclops with a question mark.

Somewhere above the arc is where the Cyclops sank, he reasoned. A logical assumption given the fact of the lumber freighter's position at the time of her distress signal and the Cyclops' distance as given in her reply.

The only problem was that Raymond LeBaron's piece of the puzzle didn't fit.

From his experience in searching for shipwrecks, Pitt was convinced LeBaron had performed the same exercise a hundred times, only delving deeper into currents, known weather conditions at the time of the loss, and the projected speed of the Navy collier. But one conclusion always came out the same. The Cyclops should have gone down in the middle of the channel under 260 fathoms of water, over 1,500 feet to the bottom. Far too deep to be visible to anything other than a fish.

Pitt relaxed in his chair and stared at the markings on the chart. Unless LeBaron dredged up information nobody else knew about, what was he searching for? Certainly not the Cyclops, and certainly not from a blimp. A side-scan survey from a surface craft or a deepdiving submersible would have been better suited for the job.

In addition, the prime search area was only twenty miles off Cuba. Hardly a comfortable place to cruise around in a slow-flying gas bag. Castro's gunboats would have declared open season on such an easy target.

He was sitting lost in contemplation, nibbling on the granola bar, trying to see a probability in Raymond LeBaron's scheme that he had missed, when his desk speaker beeped. He pressed the Talk switch.

"Yes?"

"Sandecker. Can you come up to my office?"

"Five minutes, Admiral."

"Try for two."

Admiral James Sandecker was the director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency. A man in his late fifties, he was of short stature, his body thin and stringy but hard as armor plating. The straight hair and Vandyke beard were blaze red. A fitness freak, he adhered to a strict exercise regimen. His naval career was distinguished more by hard-nosed efficiency than sea combat tactics. And though he wasn't popular in Washington social circles, politicians respected him for his integrity and organizational ability.

The admiral greeted Pitt's entry into his office with nothing more than a curt nod, then gestured to a woman sitting in a leather chair across the room.

"Dirk, I understand you've met Mrs. Jessie LeBaron."

She looked up and smiled, but it was an ingratiating smile. Pitt bowed slightly and pressed her hand.

"Sorry," he said indifferently. "I'd rather forget I know Mrs. LeBaron."

Sandecker's eyebrows pinched together. "Am I missing something?"

"My fault," said Jessie, staring into Pitt's eyes but seeing only green ice. "I was very rude to Mr. Pitt last night. I hope he accepts my apology and forgives my bad manners."

"You needn't act so formal, Mrs. LeBaron. Since we're old pals, I won't throw a tantrum if you call me Dirk. As to forgiving you, how much is it going to cost me?"

"My intent was to hire you," she replied, ignoring the gibe.

He gave Sandecker a bemused look. "Strange, I had this funny idea I worked for NUMA."

"Admiral Sandecker has kindly consented to release you for a few days, providing, of course, you're agreeable," she added.

"To do what?"

"To look for my husband."

"No deal."

"May I ask why?"

"I have other projects."

"You won't work for me because I'm a woman. Is that it?"

"Sex has no bearing on my decision. Let's just say I don't work for someone I can't respect."

There was an embarrassed silence. Pitt looked at the admiral. The lips were turned down in a grimace, but the eyes fairly twinkled. The old bastard was enjoying this, he thought.

"You've misjudged me, Dirk." Jessie's face was flushed in confusion, but her eyes were hard as crystal.

"Please." Sandecker raised both hands. "Let's call a truce. I suggest you two get together some evening and have it out over dinner."

Pitt and Jessie stared at each other for a long moment. Then Pitt's mouth slowly spread in a wide infectious smile. "I'm willing, providing I pay."

Despite herself Jessie had to smile too. "Allow me some self-respect. Let's split the bill?"

"Done."

"Now we can get on with the business at hand," Sandecker said in his no-nonsense way. "Before you arrived, Dirk, we were discussing theories on Mr. LeBaron's disappearance."

Pitt looked at Jessie. "There is no doubt in your mind that the bodies in the blimp were not those of Mr. LeBaron and his crew?"

Jessie shook her head. "None."

"I saw them. There wasn't much left to identify."

"The corpse lying in the morgue was more muscular than Raymond," explained Jessie. "Also, he'd been wearing an imitation of a Cartier wristwatch. One of those cheap replicas made in Taiwan. I'd given my husband an expensive original on our first anniversary."

"I've made a few calls on my own," added Sandecker. "The Miami coroner backed Jessie's judgment. Physical characteristics of the bodies in the morgue didn't match the three men who took off in the Prosperteer."

Pitt looked from Sandecker to Jessie LeBaron, realizing he was getting involved in something he had wished to avoid-- the emotional entanglements complicating any project that depended on solid research, practical engineering, and razor-sharp organization.

"Bodies and clothes switched," said Pitt. "Personal jewelry replaced with fakes. Any thoughts on a motive, Mrs. LeBaron?"

"I don't know what to think."

"Did you know that between the time the blimp vanished and when it reappeared in Key Biscayne the gas bags inside the hull would have had to be reinflated with helium?"

She opened her purse, took out a Kleenex, and daintily dabbed at her nose, to give her something to do with her hands. "After the police released the Prosperteer, my husband's crew chief inspected every inch of her. I have his report, if you care to see it. You're very perceptive. He found that the gas bags had been refilled. Not with helium, but with hydrogen."

Pitt looked up in surprise. "Hydrogen? That hasn't been used in airships since the Hindenburg burned."

"Not to worry," said Sandecker. "The Prosperteer's gas bags have been refilled with helium."

"So what's going down?" Pitt asked cautiously.

Sandecker gave him a hard look. "I hear you want to go after the Cyclops."

"It's no secret," answered Pitt.

"You'd have to do it on your own time without NUMA personnel and equipment. Congress would eat me alive if they learned I sanctioned a treasure hunt with government funds."

"I'm aware of that."

"Will you listen to another proposal?"

"I'll listen."

"I'm not going to hand you a lot of double-talk about doing me a great service by keeping this conversation to yourself. If it gets out I go down the drain, but that's my problem. True?"

"If you say so, yes."

"You were scheduled to direct a survey of the sea floor in the Bering Sea off the Aleutians next month. I'll bring in Jack Harris from the deep-ocean mining project to replace you. To head off any questions or later investigations or bureaucratic wrongdoing, we'll sever your connections with NUMA. As of now, you're on leave of absence until you find Raymond LeBaron."

"Find Raymond LeBaron," Pitt repeated sarcastically. "A piece of cake. The trail is two weeks cold and getting colder by the hour. No motive, no leads, not one clue to why he vanished, who did it, and how. Impossible is an understatement."

"Will you at least give it a try?" asked Sandecker.

Pitt stared at the teakwood planking that made up the floor of the admiral's office, his eyes seeing a tropical sea two thousand miles away. He disliked becoming linked with a riddle without being able to calculate at the very least an approximate solution. He knew Sandecker knew that he would accept the challenge. Chasing after an unknown over the next horizon was a lure Pitt could never resist.

"If I take this on, I'd need NUMA's best scientific team to man a first-rate research vessel. The resources and political clout to back me up. Military support in case of trouble."

"Dirk, my hands are tied. I can offer you nothing."

"What?"

"You heard me. The situation requires the search be conducted as quietly as possible. You'll have to make do without any help from NUMA."

"Have you got both oars in the water?" Pitt demanded. "You expect me, one man working alone, to accomplish what half the Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard failed to do? Why, hell, they couldn't find a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot airship until it showed up on its own. What am I supposed to use, a dowser and a canoe?"

"The idea," Sandecker explained patiently, "is to fly LeBaron's last known course in the Prosperteer."

Pitt slowly sank into an office sofa. "This is the craziest scheme I've ever heard," he said, unbelieving. He turned to Jessie. "Do you go along with this?"

"I'll do whatever it takes to find my husband," she said evenly.

"A cuckoo's nest," Pitt said gravely. He stood and began to pace the room, clasping and unclasping his hands. "Why the secrecy? Your husband was an important man, a celebrity, a confidant of the rich and famous, closely connected with high government officials, a financial guru to executives of major corporations. Why in God's name am I the only man in the country who can search for him?"

"Dirk," Sandecker said softly. "Raymond LeBaron's financial empire touches hundreds of thousands of people. Right now, it's hanging in limbo because he's still among the missing. It can't be proven whether he's alive or dead. The government has called off any further hunt, because over five million dollars have been spent by military search and rescue teams without a sighting, without a hint of where he might have disappeared. Budget-conscious congressmen will howl for scalps if more government money is spent on another fruitless effort."

"What about the private sector and LeBaron's own business associates?"

"Many business leaders respected LeBaron, but at one time or another most of them were burned by him in his editorials. They won't spend a dime or go out of their way to look for him. As to the men around him, they have more to gain by his death."

"So does Jessie here," said Pitt, gazing at her.

She smiled thinly. "I can't deny it. But the bulk of his estate goes to charities and other family members. I do, however, receive a substantial inheritance."

"You must own a yacht, Mrs. LeBaron. Why don't you assemble your own crew of investigators and look for your husband?"

"There are reasons, Dirk, why I can't conduct a large publicized effort. Reasons you needn't know. The admiral and I think there is a chance, a very slight chance, that three people can quietly retrace the flight of the Prosperteer under the same conditions and discover what happened to Raymond."