Deep Six

45

Loren was greeted by Captain Yakov Pokofsky when she boarded the Leonid Andreyev. Pokofsky was a charming man with thick silver hair and eyes as round and black as caviar. Though he acted polite and diplomatic, Loren sensed he wasn’t actually thrilled at having an American politician snooping about his ship, asking questions about its management. After the usual niceties, the first officer led her to a celebrity suite filled with enough flowers for a state funeral. The Russians, she mused, knew how to accommodate a visiting VIP.

In the evening, when the last of the passengers had boarded and settled down in their staterooms, the crew cast off the mooring lines and the cruise ship steamed out of Biscayne Bay through the channel into the Atlantic. The lights of the hotels on Miami Beach glittered under a tropical breeze and slowly closed together in a thin glowing line as the Leonid Andreyev’s twin screws thrust her further from shore.

Loren stripped off her clothes and took a shower. When she stepped out and toweled, she struck an exaggerated model’s pose in front of a full-length mirror. The body was holding up quite well, considering thirty-seven years of use. Jogging and ballet classes four hours a week kept the centrifugal forces at bay. She pinched her tummy and sadly noted that slightly more than an inch of flesh protruded between her thumb and forefinger. The lavish food on the cruise ship wasn’t going to do her weight any good. She steeled her mind to lay off the alcohol and desserts.

She slipped on a mauve silk damask jacket over a black lace and taffeta skirt. Loosening the businesslike knot at the top of her head, she let her hair down so that it spilled over her shoulders. Satisfied with the effect, she felt in the mood for a stroll around the deck before dinner at the captain’s table.

The air was so warm she dispensed with a sweater. On the aft end of the sun deck she found a vacant deck chair and relaxed, raising her knees and clasping her hands around her calves. For the next half-hour she let her mind wander as she watched the half-moon’s reflection dash across the dark swells. Then the exterior deck lights abruptly went out from bow to stern.

Loren didn’t notice the helicopter until it was almost over the fantail of the ship. It had arrived at wavetop level, flying without navigation lights. Several crew members appeared from the shadows and quickly laid a roof over the boat-deck swimming pool. Then a ship’s officer signaled with a flashlight and the helicopter descended lightly onto the improvised landing pad.

Loren rose to her feet and stared over the railing. Her vantage point was one deck above and forty feet distant from the closed-over swimming pool. The area was dimly lit by the partial moon, enabling her to observe most of the action. She glanced around, looking for other passengers, but saw only five or six who were standing fifty feet further away.

Three men left the aircraft. Two of them, it appeared to Loren, were treated roughly. The ship’s officer placed the flashlight under his arm so he could have both hands free to brusquely shove one of the men into an open hatchway. For a brief instant the un-aimed beam caught and held on a paper-white face, eyes bulging in fear. Loren saw the facial details clearly. Her hands gripped the deck rail and her heart felt locked in ice.

Then the copter rose into the night and turned sharply back toward shore. The cover over the pool was quickly removed and the crew melted away. In a few seconds the ship’s lights came back on. Everything happened so fast, Loren wondered for a moment if she had actually witnessed the landing and takeoff.

But there was no mistaking the frightened creature she saw on the pool deck below. She was positive it was the Speaker of the House, Congressman Alan Moran.

On the bridge Captain Pokofsky peered at the radar-scope. He was of medium height and portly. A cigarette dangled from one corner of his mouth. He straightened and smoothed the jacket of his white dress uniform.

“At least they waited until we were beyond the twelve-mile limit,” he said in a guttural voice.

“Any sign they were followed?” asked the officer of the watch.

“No aerial contacts and no craft approaching by sea,” answered Pokofsky. “A smooth operation.”

“Like the others,” the watch officer said with a cocky smile.

Pokofsky did not return the smile. “I’m not fond of taking deliveries on short notice under moonlit skies.”

“This one must be a high priority.”

“Aren’t they all?” Pokofsky said caustically.

The watch officer decided to remain quiet. He’d served with Pokofsky long enough to recognize when the captain was in one of his moods.

Pokofsky checked the radar again and swept his eyes across the black sea ahead. “See that our guests are escorted to my cabin,” he ordered before turning and leaving the bridge.

Five minutes later the ship’s second officer knocked on the captain’s door, opened it and ushered in a man wearing a rumpled business suit.

“I’m Captain Pokofsky,” he said, rising from a leather reading chair.

“Paul Suvorov.”

“KGB or GRU?”[1]

“KGB.”

Pokofsky gestured toward a sofa. “Do you mind informing me of the purpose behind your unscheduled arrival?”

Suvorov gratefully sat down and took the measure of Pokofsky. He was uncomfortable with what he read. The captain was clearly a hardened seaman and not the type to be intimidated by state security credentials. Suvorov wisely chose to tread lightly.

“Not at all. I was instructed to smuggle two men out of the country.”

“Where are they now?”

“I took the liberty of having your first officer lock them in the brig.”

“Are they Soviet defectors?”

“No, they’re American.”

Pokofsky’s brows raised. “Are you saying you’ve kidnapped American citizens?”

“Yes,” said Suvorov with an icy calm. “Two of the most important leaders in the United States government.”

“I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”

“Their names do not matter. One is a congressman, the other a senator.”

Pokofsky’s eyes burned with sudden belligerence. “Do you have any idea of the jeopardy you’ve placed my ship in?”

“We’re in international waters,” Suvorov said placidly. “What can happen?”

“Wars have started for less,” Pokofsky said sharply. “If the Americans are alerted, international waters or not, they wouldn’t hesitate for one instant to send their Navy and Coast Guard to stop and board this vessel.”

Suvorov came to his feet and stared directly into Pokofsky’s eyes. “Your precious ship is in no danger, Captain.”

Pokofsky stared back. “What are you saying?”

“The ocean is a big dumping ground,” Suvorov said steadily. “If the situation requires, my friends in the brig will simply be committed to the deep.”

46

Talk around the captain’s table was dull and inane, as could be expected. Loren’s dining companions bored her with long-drawn-out descriptions of their previous travels. Pokofsky had heard such travelogues a thousand times before. He smiled politely and listened with feigned courtesy. When asked, he told how he had joined the Russian Navy at seventeen, worked up through the officers’ ranks until he commanded a troop transport, and after twenty years’ service transferred to the Soviet state-subsidized passenger line.

He described the Leonid Andreyev as a 14,000-ton vessel, built in Finland, with a capacity of 478 passengers with two crew members for every three of them. The modern white-hulled liner had indoor and outdoor swimming pools, five cocktail bars, two nightclubs, ten shops featuring Russian merchandise and liquor, a movie and stage theater, and a well-stocked library. She cruised from Miami on ten-day sailings during the summer months to several resort islands in the West Indies.

During a lull in the conversation, Loren casually mentioned the helicopter landing. Captain Pokofsky lit a cigarette with a wooden match and waved out the flame.

“You Americans and your affluence,” he said easily.

“Two wealthy Texans missed the boat in Miami and hired a helicopter to fly them to the Andreyev. Very few of my countrymen can afford such luxury.”

“Not many of mine can either,” Loren assured him. The captain was not only congenial and charming, she thought, he was an accomplished liar as well. She dropped the subject and nibbled on her salad.

Before dessert, Loren excused herself and went to her suite on the sun deck. She kicked off her shoes, removed and hung up her skirt and jacket, and sprawled on the soft king-size bed. She ran the picture of Alan Moran’s terrified face through her mind, telling herself it must have been someone who resembled the congressman, and perhaps the beam of the flashlight outlined similar features. Reason dictated that it was merely a trick of imagination.

Then Pitt’s inquiry at the restaurant returned to her. He’d asked if she had heard any rumors of a missing party high in government. Now her gut instinct said she was right.

She laid out a ship’s directory and deck diagram on the bed and flattened out the creases. To look for Moran in a floating city with 230 staterooms, quarters for a crew of over 300, cargo holds and engine room, all spread over eleven decks nearly 500 feet in length was a lost cause. She also had to consider that she was a representative of the American government on Russian property. Obtain permission from Captain Pokofsky to search every nook and cranny of his ship? She’d stand a better chance of persuading him to give up vodka for Kentucky bourbon.

She decided the logical move would be to establish Alan Moran’s whereabouts. If he was at home in Washington watching TV, she could forget the whole madness and get a good night’s sleep. She put her dress back on and went to the communications room.

Thankfully it wasn’t crowded and she didn’t have to wait in line.

A pretty Russian girl in a trim uniform asked Loren where she wished to call.

“Washington, D.C.,” she replied. “Person to person to a Ms. Sally Lindemann. I’ll write out the number.”

“If you will please wait in booth five, I’ll arrange your satellite transmission,” the communications girl said in near flawless English.

Loren sat patiently, hoping her secretary was at home. She was. A sleepy voice answered the operator and acknowledged her name was Sally Lindemann.

“That you, boss?” Sally asked when Loren was put through. “I bet you’re dancing up a storm under Caribbean stars with some handsome playboy. Am I right?”

“You’re not even close.”

“I should have known this was a business call.”

“Sally, I need you to contact someone.”

“One sec.” There was a pause. When Sally’s voice came on again, it glowed with efficiency. “I’ve got a pad and pencil. Who do I contact and what do I say?”

“The congressman who opposed and shot down my Rocky Mountain water project.”

“You mean old prune-face Mo—”

“He’s the one,” Loren cut her off. “I want you to talk to him, face to face if possible. Start with his home. If he’s out, ask his wife where he can be reached. If she balks, tell her it’s a matter of congressional urgency. Say whatever it takes but get to him.”

“When I find him, then what?”

“Nothing,” said Loren. “Say it was a mistake.”

There were a few seconds’ silence. Then Sally said carefully, “You drunk, boss?”

Loren laughed, knowing the puzzlement that must be running through Sally’s mind.

“Dead sober.”

“Can this wait until morning?”

“I have to know his location as quickly as possible.”

“My alarm clock reads after midnight,” Sally protested.

“Now!” Loren said sharply. “Call me the second you see his face and hear his voice.”

She hung up and walked back toward her suite. The moon was directly overhead and she lingered a few minutes on deck, wishing Pitt were standing there beside her.

Loren had just finished putting on her morning face when she heard a knock at the door.

“Who’s there?”

“Steward.”

She went to the door and opened it. Her cabin steward raised his hand in a casual salute. He peered selfconsciously at the cleavage revealed by her loosely knotted dressing gown.

“An emergency call for you from the mainland, Congresswoman Smith,” he said in a heavy Slavic accent. “They’re holding it for you in the communications room.”

She thanked him and hurriedly dressed. A new girl directed her to a booth and the waiting call. Sally’s voice came through the earpiece as if she were in the next booth.

“Good morning, boss,” she said tiredly.

“Any luck?”

“Moran’s wife said he went fishing with Senator Marcus Larimer,” Sally snapped out before Loren thought to stop her. “She claimed they went to a place called Goose Lake, a private reserve for the good ole boys a few miles below the Quantico Marine Corps reservation. So I hopped in my car and drove down. After bluffing my way past an outdoorsy type guarding the gate, I checked every cottage, boathouse and dock. No congressman, no senator. Then back to the capital. I called and woke up three of Moran’s aides. Don’t ever look for favors from his office. They backed up the fishing story. As a double-check, I tried a couple of Larimer’s staff too. Same bull. In fact, nobody has seen either of them in over a week. Sorry I failed you, boss, but it looks like a smoke screen to me.”

Loren felt a cold chill run through her. The second man she saw manhandled from the helicopter, could he have been Marcus Larimer?

“Shall I stay on the hunt?” asked Sally.

“Yes, please,” Loren answered.

“Do my best,” Sally declared. “Oh, I almost forgot. Have you heard the latest news?”

“How could I at ten in the morning on a boat in the middle of the ocean?”

“Concerns your friend Dirk Pitt.”

“Something happen to Dirk?” Loren asked anxiously.

“Persons unknown blew up his car. Lucky for him he wasn’t inside at the tune. Close, though. Walking toward it when he stopped to talk to a friend. According to District police, another couple of minutes and they’d have swept him up with a broom.”

Everything caught up and jammed behind Loren’s eyes. It was all happening too fast for her to accept. The mad events splashed behind her eyes in a complexity of color, like scraps making up a backwoods bed quilt. The seams were pulling apart in all directions. She grasped the only thread that seemed to hold.

“Sal, listen carefully. Call Dirk and tell him I need—” Suddenly a shrill buzzing sound flooded her eardrum. “Can you hear me, Sal?”

The only reply to Loren’s question was the interference. She swung around to complain to the communications girl, but she was gone. Instead, there were two stewards, or rather two wrestlers in stewards’ uniforms, and the first officer. He opened the door to her booth and bowed curtly.

“Will you please come with me, Congresswoman Smith. The captain would like to talk to you.”

47

The pilot set the helicopter on the ground at a small airport on the Isle of Palms near Charleston. He went through the standard shutdown procedure, running the engine at low RPM’s until it cooled down. Then he climbed out, lined up one of the rotor blades and tied it to the tail boom.

His back and arms ached from the long hours in the air, and he did stretching exercises as he walked to a small office next to the landing pad. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.

A stranger sat in the tiny lobby area casually reading a newspaper. To the pilot he looked to be either Chinese or Japanese. The newspaper was lowered, revealing a shotgun with a pistol grip and twin sawed-off barrels that ended barely four inches in front of the shells.

“What do you want?” asked the pilot stupidly.

“Information?”

“You’re in the wrong place,” said the pilot, instinctively raising his hands. “We’re a helicopter ambulance service, not a library.”

“Very witty,” said the Oriental. “You also carry passengers.”

“Who told you that?”

“Paul Suvorov. One of your Russian friends.”

“Never heard of the guy.”

“How odd. He sat next to you in the co-pilot’s seat for most of yesterday.”

“What do you want?” the pilot repeated, the fear beginning to crawl up his spine.

The Oriental smiled wickedly. “You have ten seconds to tell me the precise destination where you flew Suvorov and two other men. If at the end of that time you feel stubborn, I shall blow away one of your knees. Ten seconds later you can bid goodbye to your sex life.” He enforced his request by releasing the safety on the shotgun. “Countdown begins… now.”

Three minutes later the Oriental stepped from the building and locked the door. Then he walked to a car parked nearby, climbed behind the wheel and drove toward a sandy road leading to Charleston.

The car was barely out of sight when a torrent of orange flame gushed through the thin roof of the pilot’s office and spiraled into the white overcast sky.

Pitt spent the day dodging reporters and police detectives. He hid in a quiet pub called the Devil’s Fork on Rhode Island Avenue and sat in a cushiony leather seat in a quiet corner staring pensively at a half-eaten Monte Cristo sandwich and a third Manhattan, a drink he seldom ordered.

A pert blond waitress in a micro-skirt and mesh stockings stopped by his table. “You’re the most pitiful person in the place,” she said with a motherly smile. “Lose your best girl or your wife?”

“Worse,” said Pitt sadly. “My car.”

She laid a look on him reserved for Martians and weirdos, shrugged and continued her rounds of the other tables.

Pitt sat there idly stirring the Manhattan with a cherry, scowling at nothing. Somewhere along the line he had lost his grip on things. Events were controlling him. Knowing who tried to kill him provided little satisfaction. Only the Bougainville hierarchy had the motive. He was getting too close. No brilliance required in solving that mystery.

He was angry at himself for playing adolescent computer games with their financial operation while they ran in a tougher league. Pitt felt like a prospector who’d discovered a safe full of currency in the middle of the Antarctic and no place to spend it. His only leverage was that he knew more than they thought he knew.

The enigma that nagged him was Bougainville’s unlikely involvement with the Eagle. He knew of no motive for the sinking and murders. The only tie, and a slim one at that, was the overabundance of Korean bodies.

No matter; that was the FBI’s problem, and he was glad to be rid of it.

The time had come, he decided, to get rolling, and the first step was to marshal his forces. No brilliance required in that decision either.

He rose and walked over to the bar. “Can I borrow your phone, Cabot?”

The bartender, a pixie-faced Irishman, name of Sean Cabot, gave Pitt a doleful glare. “Local or long distance?”

“Long distance, but don’t cry in your cash register. I’ll use a credit card.”

Cabot nodded indifferently and set a telephone on the end of the bar away from the other customers. “Too bad about your car, Dirk. I saw her once. She was a beauty.”

“Thanks. Buy yourself a drink and put it on my tab.”

Cabot filled a glass with ginger ale from the dispenser and held it aloft. “To a Good Samaritan and a bon vivant.”

Pitt didn’t feel like a Good Samaritan and even less like a bon vivant as he punched Out the numbers on the phone. He gave his credit card number to the operator and waited for a voice to answer.

“Casio and Associates Investigatahs.”

“This is Dirk Pitt. Is Sal in?”

“One moment, sah.”

Things were looking up. He’d been accepted into the receptionist’s club.

“Dirk?” came Casio’s voice. “I’ve been calling your office all morning. I think I’ve got something.”

“Yes?”

“A hunt through maritime union files paid dividends. Six of the Korean seamen who signed on the San Marino had prior crew tickets. Mostly with foreign shipping lines. But all six had one thing in common. At one time or another they sailed for Bougainville Maritime. Ever hear of it?”

“It figures,” said Pitt. Then he proceeded to tell Casio what he found during the computer search.

“Damn!” Casio exclaimed incredulously. “Everything fits.”

“The maritime union, what did their records show on the Korean crew after the San Marino hijacking?”

“Nothing, they dropped from sight.”

“If Bougainville history ran true to form, they were murdered.”

Casio fell silent, and Pitt guessed what was running through the investigator’s mind.

“I owe you,” Casio said finally. “You’ve helped me zero in on Arta’s killer. But it’s my show. I’ll take it alone from here.”

“Don’t give me the vengeance is mine martyr routine,” Pitt said abruptly. “Besides, you still don’t know who was directly responsible.”

“Min Koryo Bougainville,” said Casio, spitting out the name. “Who else could it be?”

“The old girl might have given the orders,” said Pitt, “but she didn’t dirty her hands. It’s no secret she’s been in a wheelchair for ten years. No interviews or pictures of her have been published since Nixon was President. For all we know, Min Koryo Bougainville is a senile, bedridden vegetable. Hell, she may even be dead. No way she scattered bodies over the seascape alone.”

“You’re talking a corporate hit squad.”

“Can you think of a more efficient way to eliminate the competition?”

“Now you’re insinuating she’s a member of the Mafia,” grunted Casio.

“The Mafia only kill informers and each other. The evil beauty of Min Koryo’s setup is that by murdering crews in wholesale lots and stealing vessels from other shipping lines, she built her assets with almost no overhead. And to do it she has to have someone organize and orchestrate the crimes. Don’t let your hate blind you to hard-core reality, Sal. You haven’t got the resources to take on Bougainville alone.”

“And you do?”

“Takes two to start an army.”

There was another silence, and Pitt thought the connection might have been broken.

“You still there, Sal?”

“I’m here,” Casio finally said in a thoughtful voice. “What do you want me to do?”

“Fly to New York and pay a visit to Bougainville Maritime.”

“You mean toss their office?”

“I thought the term was ‘breaking and entering.’ “

“A cop and a judge use different dictionaries.”

“Just employ your talents to see what you can find of interest that doesn’t show up in the computers.”

“I’ll bug the place while I’m at it.”

“You’re the expert,” said Pitt. “Our advantage is that you’ll be coming from a direction they won’t suspect. Me, I’ve already been marked.”

“Marked?” asked Casio. “How?”

“They tried to kill me.”

“Christ!” muttered Casio. “How?”

“Car bomb.”

“The bastards!” he rasped. “I’ll leave for New York this afternoon.”

Pitt pushed the telephone across the bar and returned to his booth. He felt better after talking to Casio, and he finished the sandwich. He was contemplating his fourth Manhattan when Giordino walked up to the table.

“A private party?” he asked.

“No,” Pitt said. “A hate-the-world, feel-sorry-for-yourself, down-in-the-dumps party.”

“I’ll join it anyway,” Giordino said, sliding into the booth. “The admiral’s concerned about you.”

“Tell him I’ll pay for the damage to the parking lot.”

“Be serious. The old guy is madder than a stepped-on rattler. Raised hell with the Justice Department all morning, demanding they launch an all-out investigation to find out who was behind the bombing. To him, an attack on you is an attack on NUMA.”

“The FBI nosing around my apartment and office?”

Giordino nodded. “No less than six of them.”

“And reporters?”

“I lost count. What did you expect? The blast that disintegrated your car thrust your name in the limelight. Instant celebrity. First bomb explosion the city’s had in four years. Like it or not, old friend, you’ve become the eye of the storm.”

Pitt felt a mild elation at having scared the Bougainville interests enough for them to attempt his removal. They must somehow have learned he was nipping at their flanks, digging deeper into their secrets with each bite. But why the overreaction?

The fake announcement of his discovery of both the San Marino and the Pilottown no doubt alerted them. Yet it shouldn’t have thrown them into a panic. Min Koryo wasn’t the panicky type — point demonstrated by the fact she did not respond to the doctored story.

How then did they realize he was so close?

Bougainville couldn’t have tied him to the computer penetration and planned his death in such short order. Then the revelation struck him. The notion had been there all the time, but he had pushed it aside, failing to pursue it because it did not fit a pattern. Now it burst like a flare.

Bougainville had linked him to the Eagle.

Pitt was so engrossed in thought he didn’t hear Giordino telling him he had a phone call.

“Your mind must be a million miles away,” said Giordino, pointing toward Cabot the bartender, who was holding up the bar phone.

Pitt walked over to the bar and spoke in the mouthpiece. “Hello.”

Sally Lindemann’s voice bubbled excitedly over the wire. “Oh, thank heavens I’ve finally tracked you down. I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

“What’s wrong?” Pitt demanded. “Is Loren all right?”

“I think so, and then maybe not,” said Sally, becoming flustered. “I just don’t know.”

“Take your time and spell it out,” Pitt said gently.

“Congresswoman Smith called me in the middle of the night from the Leonid Andreyev and told me to find the whereabouts of Speaker of the House Alan Moran. She never gave me a reason. When I asked her what to say when I contacted him, she said to tell him it was a mistake. Make sense to you?”

“Did you find Moran?”

“Not exactly. He and Senator Marcus Larimer were supposed to be fishing together at a place called Goose Lake. I went there but nobody else knew anything about them.”

“What else did Loren say?”

“Her last words to me were ‘Call Dirk and tell him I need—’ Then we were cut off. I tried several times to reach her again, but there was no answer.”

“Did you tell the ship’s operator it was an emergency?”

“Of course. They claimed my message was passed on to her stateroom, but she made no attempt to reply. This is the damnedest thing. Not like Congresswoman Smith at all. Sound crazy?”

Pitt was silent, thinking it out. “Yes,” he said at last, “just crazy enough to make sense. Do you have the Leonid Andreyev’s schedule?”

“One moment.” Sally went off the line for nearly a minute. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

“When does it make the next port?”

“Let’s see, it arrives in San Salvador in the Bahamas at ten A.M. tomorrow and departs the same evening at eight P.M. for Kingston, Jamaica.”

“Thank you, Sally.”

“What’s all this about?” Sally asked. “I wish you’d tell me.”

“Keep trying to reach Loren. Contact the ship every two hours.”

“You’ll call if you find out anything,” Sally said suspiciously.

“I’ll call,” Pitt promised.

He returned to the table and sat down.

“What was that all about?” Giordino inquired.

“My travel agent,” Pitt answered, pretending to be nonchalant. “I’ve booked us for a cruise in the Caribbean.”

48

Curtis Mayo sat at a desk amid the studio mock-up of a busy newsroom and peered at the television monitor slightly to his right and below camera number two. He was ten minutes into the evening news and waited for his cue after a commercial advertising a bathroom disinfectant. The thirty-second spot wound down on a New York fashion model, who probably never cleaned a toilet bowl in her life, smiling demurely with the product caressing her cheek.

The floor director moved into Mayo’s eye range, counted down the last three seconds and waved. The red light on the camera blinked on and Mayo stared into the lens, beginning the B segment of his news program.

“At the President’s farm in New Mexico there have been rumors that the nation’s chief executive and the Vice President are using look-alike stand-ins.”

As Mayo continued his story line the engineer in the control booth cut to the tape of the President driving the tractor.

“These scenes of the President cutting alfalfa on his farm, when viewed close up, suggest to some that it is not him. Certain famous mannerisms seem exaggerated, different rings are seen on the fingers, the wrist-watch is not the one he usually wears, and there appears to be a casual habit of scratching the chin that has not been noted before.

“John Sutton, the actor who bears a striking resemblance and who often imitates the President on TV shows and commercials, could not be found by reporters in Hollywood for comment. Which raises the question Why would our nation’s leaders require doubles? Is it a secret security procedure, or a deception for darker motives? Could it be the pressures of the job are such that they have to be in two places at the same time? We can only speculate.”

Mayo let the story dangle on a thread of suspicion. The engineer in the booth switched back to the studio camera, and Mayo went into the next story.

“In Miami today, police claimed a breakthrough in a string of drug-related murders… ”

After the program, Mayo smiled in grim delight when informed of the hundreds of calls flooding the network news offices asking for more information on the President’s double story. The same reaction, if not far heavier, had to be pouring into White House phone lines. In a spiteful sort of glee, he wondered how the presidential press secretary was taking it.

In New Mexico, Sonny Thompson stared blankly at the TV set long after Mayo left the air. He sat collapsed in his chair, his flesh the consistency of blubber. He envisioned his carefully nurtured world slamming to a rapid end. His peers in the news media were about to crucify him on a cross of sensationalism. When he was proven an accomplice to a conspiracy to deceive the American public, no newspaper or TV network would ever hire him after his looming White House departure.

John Sutton stood in back of him with a drink in one hand. “The vultures are circling,” he said.

“In giant flocks,” Thompson muttered.

“What happens now?”

“That’s for others to decide.”

“I’m not going to jail like Liddy, Colson and those other guys,” Sutton said nastily.

“Nobody’s going to jail,” Thompson said wearily. “This isn’t Watergate. The Justice Department is working with us.”

“No way I’m going to take a fall for a bunch of politicians.” Sutton’s eyes began to take on a greedy gleam. “A guy could make thousands, maybe a few million out of this.”

Thompson looked at him. “How?”

“Interviews, articles, and there’s book rights royalties — the possibilities for making a bundle are endless.”

“And you think you’re going to walk out of here and tell all.”

“Why not?” said Sutton. “Who’s going to stop me?”

It was Thompson’s turn to smile. “You haven’t been told the reasons behind your employment. You have no idea how vital your little act is to our country’s interests.”

“So who cares?” Sutton said indifferently.

“You may not believe it, Mr. Sutton, but there are many decent people in our government who are genuinely concerned about its welfare. They will never allow you to endanger it by speaking your piece for profit.”

“How can those egomaniacs who run the fun house in Washington hurt me? Slap my hand? Draft me into a volunteer army at age sixty-two? Turn me over to the Internal Revenue Service? No sweat on that score. I get audited every year anyway.”

“Nothing so mundane,” said Thompson. “You will simply be taken out.”

“What do you mean, taken out?” demanded Sutton.

“Perhaps I should have said ‘disappear,’ “ Thompson replied, delighting in the realization that grew in Sutton’s eyes. “It goes without saying your body will never be recovered.”

49

Fawcett felt no enthusiasm for the day ahead. As he scraped the beard from his chin, he occasionally glanced at the stack of newspapers spilling off the bathroom sink. Mayo’s story made front page news across every morning edition in the nation. Suddenly the press began to ask why the President hadn’t been reachable for ten days. Half the editorial columns demanded he step forward and make a statement. The other half asked the question “Where is the real President?”

Wiping the remaining lather away with a towel and slapping his face with a mild after-shave lotion, Fawcett decided his best approach was to play the Washington enigma game and remain silent. He would cover his personal territory, slide artfully into the background and gracefully permit Secretary Oates to carry the brunt of the media onslaught.

Time had slipped from days to a few hours. Soon only minutes would be left. The inner sanctum could stall no longer.

Fawcett couldn’t begin to predict the complications that would arise from the announcement of the abduction. No crime against the government had ever approached this magnitude.

His only conviction was that the great perpetuating bureaucracy would continue to somehow function. The power elite were the ones who were swept in and swept out by the whim of the voters. But the institution endured.

He was determined to do everything within his shrinking realm of influence to make the next President’s transition as painless as possible. With luck, he might even save his job.

He put on a dark suit, left the house and drove to his office, dreading every mile. Oscar Lucas and Alan Mercier were waiting for him as he entered the West Wing.

“Looks grim” was all Lucas said.

“Someone has to make a statement,” said Mercier, whose face looked like it belonged in a coffin.

“Anybody I know draw the short straw?” asked Fawcett.

“Doug Oates thought you’d be the best man to hold a press conference and announce the kidnapping.”

“What about the rest of the Cabinet?” Fawcett asked incredulously.

“They concurred.”

“Screw Oates!” Fawcett said coarsely. “The whole idea is stupid. He’s only trying to save his own ass. I don’t have the credentials to drop the bombshell. As far as the grass-roots voters are concerned, I’m a nonentity. Not one out of a thousand can recall my name or give my position in the administration. You know exactly what would happen. The public would immediately sense their nation’s leaders are floundering in a sinking boat, shrinking behind closed doors to save their political hides, and when it was over, any respect the United States ever had would be wiped out. No, I’m sorry. Oates is the logical choice to make the announcement.”

“But you see,” Mercier said patiently, “if Oates is forced to take the heat and plead ignorance to a lot of embarrassing questions, it might seem he had something to do with the abduction. As next in line for the Presidency, he has the most to gain. Every muckraker in the country will scream ‘conspiracy.’ Remember the public backlash when former Secretary of State Alexander Haig said he had everything under control right after Reagan was shot by Hinckley? Warranted or not, his image as a power seeker mushroomed. The public didn’t like the idea of him running the country. His base of influence eroded until he finally resigned.”

“You’re comparing catsup to mustard,” Fawcett said. “I’m telling you, the people will be incensed if I stand up and state the President, Vice President and the two majority leaders in Congress have mysteriously vanished and are presumed dead. Hell, no one would believe me.”

“We can’t sidestep the main issue,” Mercier said firmly. “Douglas Oates has to go into the White House as pure as the driven snow. He can’t do a decent job of picking up the pieces if he’s surrounded by doubt and malicious rumor.”

“Oates is not a politician. He’s never expressed the slightest interest in attaining the Presidency.”

“He has no choice,” Mercier said. “He must serve in the interim until the next elections.”

“Can I have the Cabinet standing behind me for support during the press conference?”

“No, they won’t agree to that.”

“So I’m to be run out of town on a rail,” said Fawcett bitterly. “Is that the mutual decision?”

“You’re overstating your case,” said Mercier mildly. “You won’t be tarred and feathered. Your job is secure. Doug Oates wants you to remain as White House Chief of Staff.”

“And ask me to resign six months later.”

“We can’t guarantee the future.”

“All right,” Fawcett said, his voice trembling in anger. He pushed past Mercier and Lucas. “Go back and tell Oates he’s got his human sacrifice.”

He never turned back but strode down the hallway and went directly to his office, where he paced the floor, fuming in rage. The bureaucracy, he cursed to himself, its wheels were about to rumble over him. He was so furious he did not even notice the President’s secretary, Megan Blair, enter the room.

“Mercy, I’ve never seen you so agitated,” she said.

Fawcett turned and managed a smile. “Just complaining to the walls.”

“I do that too, especially when my visiting niece drives me mad with her disco recordings. Blasts that awful music all over the house.”

“Can I help you with anything?” he asked impatiently.

“Speaking of complaining,” she said testily, “why wasn’t I told the President had returned from his farm?”

“Must have slipped my mind—” He stopped and gazed at her queerly. “What did you say?”

“The President’s back and no one on your staff warned me.”

Fawcett’s expression turned to abject disbelief. “He’s in New Mexico.”

“Certainly not,” Megan Blair said adamantly. “He’s sitting at his desk this very moment. He chewed me out for coming in late.”

Megan was not a woman who could lie easily. Fawcett looked deeply into her eyes and saw she was telling the truth.

She stared back at him, her head tilted questioningly. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Fawcett didn’t answer. He ran from his office and down the hallway, meeting Lucas and Mercier, who were still conferring in hushed tones. They looked up startled as Fawcett frantically pounded around them.

“Follow me!” he shouted over one shoulder, arms flinging.

They stood stone-still for a moment, blinking in utter confusion. Then Lucas reacted and dashed after Fawcett, with Mercier bringing up the rear.

Fawcett burst into the Oval Office and stopped dead, his face going white.

The President of the United States looked up and smiled. “Good morning, Dan. Ready to go over my appointment schedule?”

Less than a mile away, in a secure room on the top floor of the Russian embassy, Aleksei Lugovoy sat in front of a large monitor and read the deciphered brainwaves of the President. The display screen showed the thoughts in English while a nearby printer produced paper copies translated into Russian.

He sipped a cup of thick black coffee, then stood up, keeping his eyes on the green letters, the heavy bunched eyebrows raised in controlled conceit.

From a distance, the President’s brain transmitted its every thought, speech pattern, and even the words spoken by others nearby as they were received and committed to memory.

The second stage of the Huckleberry Finn Project was a success.

Lugovoy decided to wait a few more days before he entered the final and most critical stage, the issuing of commands. If all went well, he knew with a sinking certainty, his revered project would be taken over by the men in the Kremlin. And then Chairman of the Party Antonov and not the President would direct policy for the United States.

50

The molten sun slipped below the western edge of the Aegean Sea as the ship cleared the Dardanelles and headed through the maze of Greek islands. The surface rolled under gentle two-foot swells and a hot breeze set in from the African coast to the south. Soon the orange faded from the sky and the sea lost its blue and they melted together into a solid curtain of black. The moon had not yet risen; the only light came from the stars and the sweeping beam of the navigation beacon on the island of Lesbos.

Captain James Mangyai, master of the 540-foot bulk freighter Venice, stood on the bridge and kept a close watch over the bow. He gave a cursory glance to the radar display and stared out the window again, relieved that the sea was empty of other shipping.

Since departing the Russian port of Odessa in the Black Sea, six hundred nautical miles behind, he had been extremely restless. Now he began to breathe easier. There were few tricks the Russians would dare attempt in Greek waters.

The Venice was in ballast — her only cargo was the gold shipment transferred from the Soviet government to Madame Bougainville — and her hull rode high in the water. Her destination was Genoa, where the gold was to be secretly unloaded and shipped to Lucerne, Switzerland, for storage.

Captain Mangyai heard footsteps behind him on the teak deck and recognized his first officer, Kim Chao, in the reflection on the window.

“How does it look to you, Mr. Chao?” he said without turning.

Chao read over the hour-by-hour meteorological report from the automated data system. “Calm sailing for the next twelve hours,” he said in an unhurried voice. “Extended forecast looks good too. We’re fortunate. The southerly winds are usually much stronger this time of year.”

“We’ll need a smooth sea if we’re to dock in Genoa under Madame Bougainville’s schedule.”

“Why the hurry?” asked Chao. “Another twelve hours of sailing won’t matter.”

“It matters to our employer,” said Mangyai dryly. “She doesn’t wish our cargo in transit any longer than necessary.”

“The chief engineer is making more wind than a typhoon. He claims he can’t keep up this speed for the whole voyage without burning up the engines.”

“He always sees black clouds.”

“You haven’t left the bridge since Odessa, Captain. Let me spell you.”

Mangyai nodded gratefully. “I could use a short rest. But first I should look in on our passenger.”

He turned over the bridge watch to Chao and walked down three decks to a heavy steel door at the end of an alleyway amidships. He pressed a transmit button on a speaker bolted to the bulkhead.

“Mr. Hong, this is Captain Mangyai.”

He was answered by the gentle creak of the massive door as it was pulled open. A small moon-faced man with thick-lensed spectacles peered cautiously around the edge. “Ah, yes, Captain. Please come in.”

“Can I get you anything, Mr. Hong?”

“No, I’m quite comfortable, thank you.”

Hong’s idea of comfort was considerably different from Mangyai’s. The only suggestion of human habitation was a suitcase neatly stowed under a canvas folding cot, one blanket, a small electric burner with a pot of tea, and a desk hanging from a bulkhead, its surface hidden under a pile of chemical analysis equipment. The rest of the compartment was packed with wooden crates and gold bars. The gold was stacked thirty high and ten deep in several rows. Some bars were scattered on the deck next to the open crates, the unsanded sides stenciled with the disclosure:

“How are you coming?” Mangyai asked.

“I should have it all examined and crated by the time we reach port.”

“How many gilded lead bars did the Russians slip in?”

“None,” said Hong, shaking his head. “The count tallies, and every bar I’ve checked so far is pure.”

“Strange they were so accommodating. The shipment arrived at the preset hour. Their dockworkers loaded it on board without incident. And we were cleared to depart without the usual administrative hassle. I’ve never experienced such efficiency in any of my previous dealings with Soviet port authorities.”

“Perhaps Madame Bougainville has great influence in the Kremlin.”

“Perhaps,” said Mangyai skeptically. He looked curiously at the piles of gleaming yellow metal. “I wonder what was behind the transaction?”

“I’m not about to ask,” said Hong, carefully wrapping a bar in wadding and placing it in a crate.

Before Mangyai could answer, a voice came over the speaker. “Captain, are you in there?”

He walked over and cracked the heavy door. The ship’s communications officer was standing outside in the alleyway.

“Yes, what is it?”

“I thought you should know, Captain, someone is jamming our communications.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“Yes, sir,” said the young officer. “I managed to get a fix on it. The source is less than three miles off our port bow.”

Mangyai excused himself to Hong and hurried to the bridge. First Officer Chao was calmly sitting in a high swivel chair studying the instruments on the ship’s computerized control panel.

“Do you have any ship contacts in, Mr. Chao?” asked Mangyai.

If Chao was surprised at the captain’s sudden reappearance, he didn’t show it. “Nothing visual, nothing on radar, sir.”

“What is our depth?”

Chao checked the reading on the depth sounder. “Fifty meters, or about a hundred and sixty feet.”

The awful truth struck Mangyai’s mind like a hammer. He leaned over the chart table and plotted their course. The keel of the Venice was passing over the Tzonston Bank, one of many areas in the middle of the Aegean where the seabed rose to within a hundred feet of the surface. Deep enough for a ship’s safe passage, but shallow enough for a routine salvage operation.

“Steer for deep water!” he shouted.

Chao stared at the captain, hesitating in bewilderment. “Sir?”

Mangyai opened his mouth to repeat the order but the words froze in his throat. At that instant, two sound-tracking torpedoes homed in on the freighter’s engine room and exploded with devastating effect. Her bottom torn in gaping holes, the sea rushed into her innards. The Venice shuddered and entered her death throes.

She took only eight minutes to die, going down by the stern and disappearing beneath the indifferent swells forever.

The Venice was hardly gone when a submarine surfaced nearby and began playing her searchlight on the fragmented floating wreckage. The pitifully few survivors, clinging to the flotsam, were coldly machine-gunned until their shredded bodies sank out of sight. Boats were sent out, guided by the darting shaft of light. After searching for several hours until all the debris was pulled aboard, they returned to their ship.

Then the light was killed and the sub returned to the darkness.

51

The President sat at the center of the oval mahogany conference table in the White House Cabinet Room. There were eleven men seated there besides himself. A bemused expression shone in his eyes as he surveyed the somber faces around the table.

“I know you gentlemen are curious about where I’ve been for the last ten days, and about the status of Vince Margolin, Al Moran and Marcus Larimer. Let me put this fear to rest. Our temporary disappearance was an event planned by me.”

“You alone?” Douglas Oates put to him.

“Not entirely. President Antonov of the Soviet Union was also involved.”

For several moments, stunned and disbelieving, the President’s top advisers stared at him.

“You held a secret meeting with Antonov without the knowledge of anyone in this room?” Oates said. His face paled in dismay.

“Yes,” the President admitted. “A face-to-face talk minus outside interference and preconceived notions, without the international news media second-guessing every word and unbound by policy. Just our top four people against his.” He paused and his eyes swept the men before him. “An unorthodox way of negotiating, but one I believe the electorate will accept when they see the results.”

“Would you mind telling us how and where this talk was held, Mr. President?” asked Dan Fawcett.

“After the exchange of yachts, we transferred to a civilian helicopter and flew to a small airport outside of Baltimore. From there we took a private airliner belonging to an old friend of mine and crossed the Atlantic to an abandoned airstrip deep in the desert east of Atar, Mauritania. Antonov and his people were waiting when we arrived.”

“I thought… rather it was reported,” Jesse Simmons said hesitatingly, “that Antonov was in Paris last week.”

“Georgi stopped over in Paris for a brief conference with President L’Estrange before continuing to Atar.” He turned and looked at Fawcett. “By the way, Dan, that was a brilliant masquerade.”

“We came within a hair of getting caught.”

“For the time being, I’ll deny the rumors of a double as too absurd to comment on. Everything will be explained to the press, but not before I’m ready.”

Sam Emmett placed his elbows on the table and leaned toward the President. “Were you informed, sir, that the Eagle was sunk and its crew drowned?”

The President stared quizzically for a few moments. Then his eyes sharpened and he shook his head. “No, I wasn’t aware of it. I’d appreciate a full report, Sam, as soon as possible.”

Emmett nodded. “It will be on your desk when we adjourn.”

Oates struggled to keep his emotions in rein. That a high-level meeting of such enormous consequences to world foreign policy had taken place behind the back of the State Department was unthinkable. It was without precedent in anyone’s memory.

“I think we’d all be interested in knowing what you and Georgi Antonov discussed,” he said stiffly.

“A very productive give-and-take,” answered the President. “The most pressing item on the agenda was disarmament. Antonov and I hammered out an agreement to halt all missile production and start up a dismantling program. We arrived at a complicated formula that in simple terms means they break down a nuclear missile and we match them on a one-for-one basis with on-site inspection teams overseeing the operation.”

“France and England will never buy such a proposal,” said Oates. “Their nuclear arsenals are independent from ours.”

“We will begin with the long-range warheads and work down,” the President said, undaunted. “Europe will eventually follow.”

General Clayton Metcalf shook his head. “On the face of it, I’d have to say the proposal sounds incredibly naive.”

“It’s a beginning,” said the President adamantly. “I believe Antonov is sincere in his offer, and I intend to show good faith by pursuing the dismantling program.”

“I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve had a chance to study the formula,” said Simmons.

“Fair enough.”

“What else did you discuss?” asked Fawcett.

“A trade agreement,” answered the President. “Briefly explained, if we allow the Russians to transport their agricultural purchases in their own merchant ships, Antonov promised to pay our farmers top world prices and, most important, not to buy from any other nation unless we fail to provide the goods as ordered. In other words, American farmers are now the exclusive suppliers of Soviet imported farm products.”

“Antonov bought your package?” Oates asked incredulously. “I can’t believe the old bear capable of giving away an exclusive license to any nation.”

“I have his assurance in writing.”

“It sounds great,” said Martin Brogan. “But I’d like someone to explain how Russia can afford to make wholesale agricultural purchases. Their East bloc satellites have defaulted on massive loans to the West. The Soviet economy is in disastrous shape. They can’t even pay their armed forces and government workers in anything but scrip good only for food and clothing. What are they going to use for money? Our farmers aren’t about to go in hock for Communists. They need immediate payment to clear their own yearly debts.”

“There is a way out,” the President said.

“Your East bloc bailout theory?” said Fawcett, anticipating him.

The President nodded. “Antonov agreed in principle to accept my economic assistance plan.”

“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. President,” said Oates, his hands clutched to keep them from visibly trembling, “your plan solves nothing. What you’re proposing is that we give billions of dollars in financial aid to the Communist nations so they can turn around and buy from our own farming community. I see that as a ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’ sucker game, with our taxpayers footing the bill.”

“I’m with Doug,” said Brogan. “What’s in it for us?”

The President looked around the table, his face set in determination. “I made up my mind that this is the only way to show the world once and for all that, in spite of her monstrous military machine, Russia’s system of government is a failure not to be envied or copied. If we do this thing, no country in the world can ever again accuse us of imperialist aggression, and no Soviet propaganda or disinformation campaigns against us will be taken seriously. Think of it, the United States helped its enemies back on their feet after World War Two. And now we can do the same for a nation that has made a crusade out of condemning our democratic principles. I devoutly believe no greater opportunity will be laid on our doorstep to set humanity on a straight course into the future.”

“Frankly speaking, Mr. President,” said General Metcalf in a stern voice, “your grand design will change nothing. As soon as their economy has recovered, the Kremlin leaders will return to their old belligerent ways. They’re not about to give up the military expansion and political strategies of seventy years out of gratitude for American generosity.”

“The general is right,” Brogan said. “Our latest satellite surveillance photos show that even as we sit here the Russians are installing a string of their latest SS-Thirty multiple-warhead missiles along the northeast coast of Siberia, and each warhead is targeted at a city in the U.S.”

“They will be dismantled,” the President said, his tone set in concrete. “As long as we are aware of their existence, Antonov cannot sidestep his commitment.”

Oates was mad and he didn’t care who knew it. “All this talk is a waste of time.” He almost spat the words at the President. “None of your giveaway schemes can be put into motion without congressional approval. And that, sir, isn’t damned likely.”

“The Secretary is quite correct,” said Fawcett. “Congress still has to appropriate the money, and considering their present mood against Soviet troop incursions along the Iranian and Turkish borders, passage of your programs will most certainly die and be buried in committee.”

The men around the table felt uneasy, all of them realizing that the President’s administration would never function from a granite base of cohesion again.

Differences would arise that had been held in check before. From now on, reverence for teamwork was gone and the line holding personal likes and dislikes broken. Respect for the President and his office had melted away. They saw only a man like themselves, with more faults than they cared to acknowledge. The realization laid a cloud upon the room and they looked to see if the President recognized it too.

He sat there, a strange expression of wickedness spreading across his face, his lips drawn back in cold anticipation of a triumph yet to come.

“I do not need Congress,” he said cryptically. “They will have no voice in my policies.”

During the short walk from the Cabinet Room to the South Portico, Douglas Oates made up his mind to submit his resignation as Secretary of State. The President’s rude act of freezing him out of the negotiations with Antonov was an insult he refused to forgive. There was no turning back as the decision was reached and cemented. He smelled catastrophe in the air, and he wanted no part of it.

He was standing on the steps awaiting his official car when Brogan and Emmett approached.

“Can we have a word with you, Doug?” Emmett asked.

“I’m not in a mood for conversation,” Oates grumbled.

“This is critical,” Brogan said. “Please hear us out.”

His car was not yet in sight on the drive, so Oates shrugged wearily. “I’m listening.”

Brogan looked around him and then said softly, “Sam and I think the President is being manipulated.”

Oates shot him a sarcastic stare. “Manipulated, hell. He’s fallen off his track, and I for one refuse to be a party to his madness. There’s more to the sinking of the Eagle than he let on, and he never did explain the whereabouts of Margolin, Larimer and Moran. I’m sorry, gentlemen; you two can be the first to know. As soon as I get back to the State Department, I’m clearing out my desk and calling a press conference to announce my resignation. Then I’m taking the next plane out of Washington.”

“We suspected what was on your mind,” Emmett said. “That’s why we wanted to catch you before you went off the deep end.”

“What exactly are you trying to tell me?”

Emmett looked at Brogan for help and then shrugged. “The idea is difficult to put across, but Martin and I believe the President is under some sort of… well… mind control.”

Oates wasn’t sure he heard right. But logic told him the directors of the CIA and FBI were not men to make light of a serious allegation.

“Controlled by whom?”

“We think the Russians,” answered Brogan. “But we haven’t accumulated all the evidence yet.”

“We realize this sounds like science fiction,” Emmett explained, “but it appears very real.”

“My God, was the President under this influence as you suggest, when he flew to Mauritania for his talks with Antonov?”

Brogan and Emmett exchanged knowing looks. Then Brogan said, “There isn’t a plane in flight anywhere in the world the Agency doesn’t know about. I’ll stake my job that our data will show no trace of an aircraft flying on a course from Maryland to Mauritania and return.”

Oates’s eyes widened. “The meeting with Antonov…”

Emmett shook his head slowly. “It never happened.”

“Then everything — the disarmament, the agricultural trade agreements — was a lie,” said Oates, his voice cracking slightly.

“A fact which is heightened by his vague denial of the Eagle murders,” added Brogan.

“Why did he conceive such a crazy nightmare?” Oates asked dazedly.

“It really doesn’t matter why he came up with it,” said Emmett. “The programs probably were not even his idea. What matters is how his behavior is guided. Who is motivating his thought patterns, and from where?”

“Can we find out?”

“Yes,” said Emmett. “That’s why we wanted to catch you before you cut bait.”

“What can I do?”

“Stay,” Brogan replied. “The President is not fit for office. With Margolin, Moran and Larimer still missing, you remain the next man in line.”

“The President must be held in check until we can finish our investigation,” said Emmett. “With you at the helm, we keep a measure of control in the event he must be removed from office.”

Oates straightened and took a deep breath. “Lord, this is beginning to sound like a conspiracy to assassinate the President.”

“In the end,” Brogan said grimly, “it may well come to that.”

52

Lugovoy turned from his notes and stared at his staff neurologist, who sat at the console monitoring the telemetric signals.

“Condition?”

“Subject has entered a relaxed state. Brain rhythms indicate normal sleep patterns.” The neurologist looked up and smiled. “He doesn’t know it, but he’s snoring.”

“I imagine his wife knows it.”

“My guess is she sleeps in another bedroom. They haven’t had sex since he returned.”

“Body functions?”

“All reading normal.”

Lugovoy yawned and read the time. “Twelve minutes after one A.M.”

“You should get some sleep, Doctor. The President’s internal clock wakes him between six and six-fifteen every morning.”

“This is not an easy project,” Lugovoy groused. “The President requires two hours’ less sleep than I do. I detest early risers.” He paused and scanned the polysomnography screen that monitored the President’s physiological parameters accompanying his sleep. “It appears he’s dreaming.”

“Be interesting to see what the President of the United States dreams about.”

“We’ll get a rough idea as soon as his brain cell activity goes from coordinated thought patterns to disjointed abstractions.”

“Are you into dream interpretations, Doctor?”

“I leave that to the Freudians,” Lugovoy replied. “I am one of the few who believe dreams are meaningless. It’s merely a situation where the brain, freed from the discipline of daytime thinking, goes on holiday. Like a city dog who lives in an apartment and is unleashed in the country, running in no particular direction, enjoying the new and different smells.”

“There are many who would disagree.”

“Dreams are not my specialty, so I cannot argue from a purely scientific base. However, I put it to you that if they do have a message, why are most of the senses usually missing?”

“You’re referring to the absence of smell and taste?”

Lugovoy nodded. “Sounds are also seldom recorded. The same with touch and pain. Dreams are primarily visual sensations. So my own opinion, backed up by little personal research, is that a dream about a one-eyed goat who spits fire is simply that: a dream about a one-eyed goat who spits fire.”

“Dream theory is the cornerstone of all psychoanalytic behavior. With your esteemed reputation, you’d shatter quite a few established icons with your goat opinion. Think how many of our psychiatrist comrades would be out of a job if it became known that dreams are meaningless.”

“Uncontrolled dreams are quickly forgotten,” Lugovoy continued. “But the demands and instructions we transmit to the President’s brain cells while he is asleep will not be received as dreams. They are injected thoughts that can be recalled and acted upon by outside stimuli.”

“When should I begin programming his implant unit?”

“Transmit the instructions shortly before he wakes up, and repeat them when he sits down at his desk.” Lugovoy yawned again. “I’m going to bed. Ring my room if there is a sudden change.”

The neurologist nodded. “Rest well.”

Lugovoy stared briefly at the monitoring system before he left the room. “I wonder what his mind is envisioning?”

The neurologist waved casually at the data printer. “It should be there.”

“No matter,” said Lugovoy. “It can wait till morning.” Then he turned and walked to his room.

His curiosity needled, the neurologist picked up the top printout sheet containing the President’s interpreted brainwaves and glanced at the wording.

“Green hills of summer,” he muttered to himself as he read. “A city between two rivers with many Byzantine-style churches topped by hundreds of cupolas. One called St. Sophia. A river barge filled with sugar beets. The Catacombs of St. Anthony. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was dreaming about the city of Kiev.”

He stood beside a pathway on a hill overlooking a wide river, gazing at the ship traffic and holding an artist’s brush. On the tree-covered slope below him he could see a large stone pedestal beneath a figure draped in robes and holding a tall cross as though it were a staff. An easel with a canvas stood slightly off to his right. The painting was nearly finished. The landscape before his eyes was perfectly mirrored in the exacting brush strokes, down to the stippled leaves in the trees. The only difference, if one looked close enough, was the stone monument.

Instead of a long flowing beard of some forgotten saint, the head was an exact likeness of Soviet President Georgi Antonov.

Suddenly the scene changed. Now he found himself being dragged out of a small cottage by four men. The cottage walls were carved with Gothic designs and it was painted a garish blue. The faces of his abductors were indistinct, yet he could smell their unwashed sweat. They were pulling him toward a car. He experienced no fear but rather blind rage and lashed out with his feet. His assailants began beating him, but the pain felt distant as though the agony belonged to someone else.

In the doorway of the cottage he could see the figure of a young woman. Her blond hair was raised in a knot atop her head and she wore a full blouse and a peasant skirt. Her arms were upraised and she seemed to be pleading, but he could not make out the words.

Then he was thrown on the rear floor of the car and the door slammed shut.

53

The purser looked at the two tourists weaving up the boarding ramp in frank amusement. They were an outlandish pair. The female was dressed in a loose-fitting, ankle-length sundress, and to the Russian purser’s creative eye, she could have passed for a rain-bowed sack of Ukrainian potatoes. He couldn’t quite make out her face because it was partially obscured by a wide-brimmed straw hat, tied around the chin by a silk scarf, but he imagined if it was revealed it would break his watch crystal.

The man who appeared to be her husband was drunk. He reeled onto the deck smelling of cheap bourbon, and laughed constantly. Dressed in a loud flowered shirt and white duck pants, he leered at his ugly wife and whispered gibberish in her ear. He noticed the purser and raised his arm in a comical salute.

“Hi-ho, Captain,” he said with a slack grin.

“I am not the captain. My name is Peter Kolodno. I am the purser. How can I help you?”

“I’m Charlie Gruber and this is my wife, Zelda. We bought tickets here in San Salvador.”

He handed a packet to the purser, who studied them carefully for a few moments.

“Welcome aboard the Leonid Andreyev,” said the purser officially. “I regret that we do not have our usual hospitality festivities to greet new passengers, but you’ve joined us rather late in the cruise.”

“We were sailing on a windjammer when the dumb helmsman ran us onto a reef,” the man called Gruber babbled. “My little woman and I near drowned. Couldn’t see going back home to Sioux Falls early. So we’re finishing our vacation on your boat. Besides, my wife turns on to Greeks.”

“This is a Russian ship,” the purser explained patiently.

“No kidding?”

“Yes, sir, the Leonid Andreyev’s home port is Sevastopol.”

“You don’t say. Where is that?”

“The Black Sea,” the purser said, maintaining an air of politeness.

“Sounds polluted.”

The purser was at a loss as to how America ever became a superpower with citizens such as these. He checked his passenger list and then nodded. “Your cabin is number thirty-four, on the Gorki deck. I’ll have a steward show you the way.”

“You’re all right, pal,” Gruber said, shaking his hand.

As the steward led the Grubers to their cabin, the purser looked down at his palm. Charlie Gruber had tipped him a twenty-five-cent piece.

As soon as the steward deposited their luggage and closed the door, Giordino threw off his wig and rubbed the lip gloss from his mouth. “God, Zelda Gruber! How am I ever going to live this one down?”

“I still say you should have taped a couple of grapefruit to your chest,” Pitt said, laughing.

“I prefer the flat look. That way I don’t stand out.”

“Probably a good thing. There’s not enough room in here for the four of us.”

Giordino waved his arms around the small confines of the windowless cabin. “Talk about a discount excursion. I’ve been in bigger phone booths. Feel the vibration? We must be next to the engine.”

“I requested the cheap accommodations so we could be on a lower deck,” Pitt explained. “We’re less visible down here, and closer to the working areas of the ship.”

“You think Loren might be locked up somewhere below?”

“If she saw something or someone she wasn’t supposed to, the Russians wouldn’t keep her where she might contact other passengers.”

“On the other hand, this could be a false alarm.”

“We’ll soon know,” Pitt said.

“How shall we work it?” Giordino asked.

“I’ll wander the crew’s quarters. You check the passenger list in the purser’s office for Loren’s cabin. Then see if she’s in it.”

Giordino grinned impishly. “What shall I wear?”

“Go as yourself. Zelda we’ll keep in reserve.”

A minute after eight P.M. the Leonid Andreyev eased away from the dock. The engines beat softly as the bow came around. The sandy arms of San Salvador’s harbor slid past as the ship entered the sea and sailed into a fiery sunset.

The lights flashed on and sparkled across the water like fireworks as the ship came alive with laughter and the music of two different orchestras. Passengers changed from shorts and slacks to suits and gowns, and lingered in the main dining room or perched in one of the several cocktail lounges.

Al Giordino, dressed in a formal tux, strutted along the corridor outside the penthouse suites as though he owned them. Stopping at a door, he looked around. A steward was approaching behind him with a tray.

Giordino stepped across to an opposite door marked MASSAGE ROOM and knocked.

“The masseuse goes off duty at six o’clock, sir,” said the steward.

Giordino smiled. “I thought I’d make an appointment for tomorrow.”

“I’ll be glad to take care of that for you, sir. What time would be convenient?”

“How about noon?”

“I’ll see to it,” said the steward, his arm beginning to sag under the weight of the tray. “Your name and cabin?”

“O’Callaghan, cabin twenty-two, the Tolstoy deck,” Giordino said. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

Then he turned and walked back to the passenger lift. He pushed the “down” button so it would ring and then glanced along the corridor. The steward balanced the tray and knocked lightly on a door two suites beyond Loren’s. Giordino couldn’t see who responded, but he heard a woman’s voice invite the steward inside.

Without wasting a second, Giordino rushed to Loren’s suite, crudely forced in the door with a well-aimed kick near the lock and entered. The rooms were dark and he switched on the lights. Everything was pin neat and luxurious with no hint of an occupant.

He didn’t find Loren’s clothes in the closet. He didn’t find any luggage or evidence that she had ever been there. He combed every square foot carefully and slowly, room by room. He peered under the furniture and behind the drapes. He ran his hands over the carpets and under chair cushions. He even checked the bathtub and shower for pubic hairs.

Nothing.

But not quite nothing. A woman’s presence lingers in a room after she leaves it. Giordino sniffed the air. A very slight whiff of perfume caught his nostrils. He couldn’t have distinguished Chanel No. 5 from bath cologne, but this aroma had the delicate fragrance of a flower. He tried to identify it, yet it hung just beyond his reach.

He rubbed soap on the wooden splinter that broke off when he kicked in the door and pressed it into place. A poor glue job, he thought, but enough to hold for a few openings in case the suite was checked again by the crew before the ship docked back in Miami.

Then he snapped the lock, turned off the light and left.

Pitt suffered hunger pangs as he dropped down a tunnel ladder toward the engine room. He hadn’t eaten since Washington, and the growls from his stomach seemed to echo inside the narrow steel access tube. He wished he was seated in the dining room putting away the delicacies from the gourmet menu. Suddenly he brushed away all thought of food as he detected voices rising from the compartment below.

He crouched against the ladder and gazed past his feet. A man’s shoulder showed no more than four feet below him. Then the top of a head with stringy, unkempt blond hair moved into view. The crewman said a few words in Russian to someone else. There was a muffled reply followed by the sound of footsteps on a metal grating. After three minutes, the head moved away and Pitt heard the thin clap of a locker door closing. Then footsteps again and silence.

Pitt swung around the ladder, inserted his feet and calves through a rung and hung upside down, his eyes peering under the lip of the tunnel.

He found himself with an inverted view of the engine room crew’s locker room. It was temporarily vacant. Quickly he climbed down and went through the lockers until he found a pair of grease-stained coveralls that were a reasonable fit. He also took a cap that was two sizes too large and pulled it over his forehead. Now he was ready to wander the working areas.

His next problem was that he only knew about twenty words of Russian, and most of them had to do with ordering dinner in a restaurant.

Nearly a half-hour passed before Pitt meandered into the main crew’s quarters in the bow section of the ship. Occasionally he passed a cook from one of the kitchens, a porter pushing a cart loaded with liquor for the cocktail bars, or a cabin maid coming off duty. None gave him a second look except an officer who threw a distasteful glance at his grimy attire.

By a fortunate accident, he stumbled on the crew’s laundry room. A round-face girl looked up at him across a counter and asked him something in Russian.

He shrugged and replied, “Nyet.”

Bundles of washed uniforms lay neatly stacked on a long table. It occurred to him that the laundry-room girl had asked him which bundle was his. He studied them for a few moments and finally pointed to one containing three neatly folded white coveralls like the dirty pair he wore. By changing into clean ones he could have the run of the entire ship, pretending to be a crewman from the engine room on a maintenance assignment.

The girl laid the bundle on the counter and asked him another question.

His mind raced to dredge up something from his limited Russian vocabulary. Finally he mumbled, “Yest’li u vas sosiski.”

The girl gave him an odd look indeed but handed him the bundle, making him sign for it, which he did in an illegible scrawl. Pitt was relieved to see that her eyes reflected curiosity rather than suspicion.

It was only after he found an empty cabin and switched coveralls that it dawned on him that he’d asked the laundry girl for frankfurters.

After pausing at a bulletin board to remove a diagram showing the compartments on the decks of the Leonid Andreyev, he calmly spent the next five hours browsing around the lower hull of the ship. Detecting no clue to Loren’s presence, he returned to his cabin and found Giordino had thoughtfully ordered him a meal.

“Anything?” Giordino asked, pouring two glasses from a bottle of Russian champagne.

“Not a trace,” said Pitt wearily. “We celebrating?”

“Allow me a little class in this dungeon.”

“You search her suite?”

Giordino nodded. “What kind of perfume does Loren wear?”

Pitt stared at the bubbles rising from the glass for a moment. “A French name; I can’t recall it. Why do you ask?”

“Have an aroma like a flower?”

“Lilac… no, honeysuckle. Yes, honeysuckle.”

“Her suite was wiped clean. The Russians made it look like she’d never been there, but I could still smell her scent.”

Pitt drained the champagne glass and poured another without speaking.

“We have to face the possibility they killed her,” Giordino said matter-of-factly.

“Then why hide her clothes and luggage? They can’t claim she fell overboard with all her belongings.”

“The crew could have stored them below and are waiting for an opportune moment, like rough weather, to announce the tragic news. Sorry, Dirk,” Giordino added, no apology in his voice. “We’ve got to look at every angle, good or bad.”

“Loren is alive and on board this ship somewhere,” Pitt said steadfastly. “And maybe Moran and Larimer too.”

“You’re taking a lot for granted.”

“Loren is a smart girl. She didn’t ask Sally Lindemann to locate Speaker of the House Moran unless she had a damn good reason. Sally claims Moran and Senator Larimer have both mysteriously dropped from sight. Now Loren is missing too. What impression do you get?”

“You make a good sales pitch, but what’s behind it?”

Pitt shrugged negatively. “I flatly don’t know. Only a crazy idea this might somehow mix with Bougainville Maritime and the loss of the Eagle.”

Giordino was silent, thinking it over. “Yes,” he said slowly, “a crazy idea, but one that makes a lot of circumstantial sense. Where do you want me to start?”

“Put on your Zelda getup and walk past every cabin on the ship. If Loren or the others are held prisoner inside, there will be a security guard posted outside the door.”

“And that’s the giveaway,” said Giordino. “Where will you be?”

Pitt laid out the diagram of the ship on his bunk. “Some of the crew are quartered in the stern. I’ll scrounge there.” He folded up the diagram and shoved it in the pocket of the coveralls. “We’d best get started. There isn’t much time.”

“At least we have until the day after tomorrow, when the Leonid Andreyev docks in Jamaica.”

“No such luxury,” said Pitt. “Study a nautical chart of the Caribbean and you’ll see that about this time tomorrow afternoon we’ll be cruising within sight of the Cuban coast.”

Giordino nodded in understanding. “A golden opportunity to transfer Loren and others off the ship where they can’t be touched.”

“The nasty part is they may not stay on Cuban soil any longer than it takes to put them on a plane for Moscow.”

Giordino considered that for a moment and then went over to his suitcase, removed the mangy wig and slipped it over his curly head. Then he peered in a mirror and made a hideous face.

“Well, Zelda,” he said sourly, “let’s go walk the decks and see who we can pick up.”

54

The President went on national television that same evening to reveal his meeting and accord with President Antonov of the Soviet Union. In his twenty-three-minute address, he briefly outlined his programs to aid the Communist countries. He also stated his intention to abolish the barriers and restrictions on purchases of American high technology by the Russians. Never once was Congress mentioned. He spoke of the Eastern bloc trade agreements as though they were already budgeted and set in motion. He closed by promising that his next task would be to throw his energies behind a war to reduce the national crime rate.

The ensuing uproar in government circles swept all other news before it. Curtis Mayo and other network commentators broadcast scathing attacks on the President for overstepping the limits of his authority. Specters of an imperial Presidency were raised.

Congressional leaders who had remained in Washington during the recess launched a telephone campaign encouraging their fellow lawmakers who were vacationing or campaigning in their home states to return to the capital to meet in emergency session. House and Senate members, acting without the counsel of their majority leaders, Moran and Larimer, who could not be reached, solidly closed ranks against the President in a bipartisan flood.

Dan Fawcett burst into the Oval Office the next morning, anguish written on his face. “Good God, Mr. President, you can’t do this!”

The President looked up calmly. “You’re referring to my talk last night?”

“Yes, sir, I am,” Fawcett said emotionally. “You as good as went on record as saying you were proceeding with your aid programs without congressional approval.”

“Is that what it sounded like?”

“It did.”

“Good,” said the President, thumping his hand on the desk. “Because that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

Fawcett was astonished. “Not under the Constitution. Executive privilege does not extend that far—”

“God damn it, don’t try and tell me how to run the Presidency,” the President shouted, suddenly furious. “I’m through begging and compromising with those conceited hypocrites on the Hill. The only way I’m going to get anything done, by God, is to put on the gloves and start swinging.”

“You’re setting out on a dangerous course. They’ll band together to freeze out every issue you put before them.”

“No, they won’t!” the President shouted, rising to his feet and coming around the desk to face Fawcett. “Congress will not have a chance to upset my plans.”

Fawcett could only look at him in shock and horror. “You can’t stop them. They’re gathering now, flying in from every state to hold an emergency session to block you.”

“If they think that,” the President said in a morbid voice Fawcett scarcely recognized, “they’re in for a big surprise.”

The early-morning traffic was spreading thin when three military convoys flowed into the city from different directions. One Army Special Counterterrorist Detachment from Fort Belvoir moved north along Anacostia Freeway while another from Fort Meade came down the Baltimore and Washington Parkway to the south. At the same moment, a Critical Operation Force attached to the Marine Corps base at Quantico advanced over the Rochambeau Bridge from the west.

As the long lines of five-ton personnel carriers converged on the Federal Center, a flight of tilt-rotored assault transports settled onto the grass of the mall in front of the Capitol reflecting pool and disgorged their cargo of crack Marine field troops from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The two-thousand-man task force was made up of United Emergency Response teams that were on twenty-four-hour alert.

As they deployed around the federal buildings, they quickly cleared everyone out of the Capitol chambers, the House and Senate offices. Then they took up their positions and sealed off all entrances.

At first the bewildered lawmakers and their aides thought it was a building evacuation due to a terrorist bomb threat. The only other explanation was an unannounced military exercise. When they learned the entire seat of American government was shut down by order of the President, they stood shocked and outraged, conferring in heated indignation in small groups on the grounds east of the Capitol building. Lyndon Johnson had once threatened to lock out Congress, but no one could believe it was actually happening.

Arguments and demands went unheard by the purposeful-looking men dressed in field camouflage and holding M-20 automatic rifles and riot guns. One senator, nationally recognized for his liberal stands, tried to break through the cordon and was dragged back to the street by two grim-faced Marines.

The troops did not surround or close the executive departments or independent agencies. For most of the federal offices it was business as usual. The streets were kept open and traffic directed in an efficient manner local citizens found downright enjoyable.

The press and television media poured onto the Capitol grounds. The grass was nearly buried under a blanket of cables and electronic equipment. Interviews before cameras became so hectic and crowded the senators and congressmen had to stand in line to voice their objections to the President’s unprecedented action.

Surprisingly, reaction from most Americans across the country was one of amusement rather than distaste. They sat in front of their television screens and viewed the event as if it were a circus. The consensus was that the President was throwing a temporary scare into Congress and would order the troops removed in a day or two.

At the State Department, Oates huddled with Emmett, Brogan and Mercier. The atmosphere was heavy with a sense of indecision and suspense.

“The President’s a damned fool if he thinks he’s more important than the constitutional government,” said Oates.

Emmett stared steadily at Mercier. “I can’t see why you didn’t suspect what was going on.”

“He shut me out completely,” said Mercier, his expression sheepish. “He never offered the slightest clue of what was on his mind.”

“Surely Jesse Simmons and General Metcalf weren’t a party to it,” Oates wondered aloud.

Brogan shook his head. “My Pentagon sources say Jesse Simmons flatly refused.”

“Why didn’t he warn us?” asked Emmett.

“After Simmons told the President in no uncertain terms that he was off base, the roof fell in. A military security guard detail escorted him home, where he was placed under house arrest.”

“Jesus,” muttered Oates in exasperation. “It gets worse by the minute.”

“What about General Metcalf?” asked Mercier.

“I’m sure he voiced his objections,” Brogan answered. “But Clayton Metcalf is a spit-and-polish soldier who’s duty-bound to carry out the orders of his commander in chief. He and the President are old, close friends. Metcalf undoubtedly feels his loyalty is to the man who appointed him to be Chief of Staff, and not Congress.”

Oates’s fingers swept an imaginary dust speck off the desktop. “The President disappears for ten days and after his return falls off the deep end.”

“Huckleberry Finn,” Brogan said slowly.

“Judging from the President’s behavioral patterns over the past twenty-four hours,” Mercier said thoughtfully, “the evidence looks pretty conclusive.”

“Has Dr. Lugovoy surfaced yet?” Oates asked.

Emmett shook his head. “He’s still missing.”

“We’ve obtained reports from our people inside Russia on the doctor,” Brogan elucidated. “His specialty for the last fifteen years has been mind transfer. Soviet intelligence ministries have provided enormous funding for the research. Hundreds of Jews and other dissidents who vanished inside KGB-operated mental institutions were his guinea pigs. And he claims to have made a breakthrough in thought interpretation and control.”

“Do we have such a project in progress?” Oates inquired.

Brogan nodded. “Ours is code-named ‘Fathom,’ which is working along the same lines.”

Oates held his head in his hands for a moment, then turned to Emmett. “You still haven’t a lead on Vince Margolin, Larimer and Moran?”

Emmett looked embarrassed. “I regret to say their whereabouts are still unknown.”

“Do you think Lugovoy has performed the mind-transfer experiment on them too?”

“I don’t believe so,” Emmett answered. “If I were in the Russians’ shoes, I’d keep them in reserve in the event the President doesn’t respond to instructions as programmed.”

“His mind could slip out of their grasp and react unpredictably,” Brogan added. “Fooling around with the brain is not an exact science. There’s no way of telling what he’ll do next.”

“Congress isn’t waiting to find out,” said Mercier. “They’re out hustling for a place to convene so they can start impeachment proceedings.”

“The President knows that, and he isn’t stupid,” Oates responded. “Every time the House and Senate members gather for a session, he’ll send in troops to break it up. With the armed forces behind him, it’s a no-win situation.”

“Considering the President is literally being told what to do by an unfriendly foreign power, Metcalf and the other Joint Chiefs can’t continue giving him their support,” said Mercier.

“Metcalf refuses to act until we produce absolute proof of mind control,” Emmett added. “But I suspect he’s only waiting for a ripe excuse to throw his lot in with Congress.”

Brogan looked concerned. “Let’s hope he doesn’t make his move too late.”

“So the situation boils down to the four of us devising a way to neutralize the President,” Oates mused.

“Have you driven past the White House today?” Mercier asked.

Oates shook his head. “No. Why?”

“Looks like an armed camp. The military is crawling over every inch of the grounds. Word has it the President can’t be reached by anybody. I doubt even you, Mr. Secretary, could walk past the front door.”

Brogan thought a moment. “Dan Fawcett is still on the inside.”

“I talked to him over the phone,” Mercier said. “He presented his opposition to the President’s actions a bit too strongly. I gather he’s now persona non grata in the Oval Office.”

“We need someone who has the President’s trust.”

“Oscar Lucas,” Emmett said.

“Good thinking,” Oates snapped, looking up. “As head of the Secret Service, he’s got the run of the place.”

“Someone will have to brief Dan and Oscar face-to-face,” Emmett advised.

“I’ll handle it,” Brogan volunteered.

“You have a plan?” asked Oates.

“Not off the top of my head, but my people will come up with something.”

“Better be good,” said Emmett seriously, “if we’re to avoid the worst fear of our Founding Fathers.”

“And what was that?” asked Oates.

“The unthinkable,” replied Emmett. “A dictator in the White House.”

55

Loren was sweating. She had never sweated so much in her life. Her evening gown was damp and plastered against her body like a second skin. The little windowless cell felt like a sauna and it was an effort just to breathe. A toilet and a bunk were her only creature comforts, and a dim bulb attached to the ceiling in a small cage glowed continuously. The ventilators, she was certain, were turned off to increase her discomfort.

When she was brought to the ship’s brig, she had seen no sign of the man she thought might be Alan Moran. No food or water had been given to her since the crew locked her up, and hunger pangs were gnawing at her stomach. No one had even visited her, and she began to wonder if Captain Pokofsky meant to keep her in solitary confinement until she wasted away.

At last she decided to abandon her attempt at vanity and removed her clinging dress. She began to do stretching exercises to pass the time.

Suddenly she heard the muted sound of footsteps outside in the passageway. Muffled voices spoke in a brief conversation, and then the door was unlatched and swung open.

Loren snatched her dress off the bunk and held it in front of her, shrinking back into a corner of the cell.

A man ducked his head as he passed through the small doorway. He was turned out in a cheap business suit that looked to her several decades out of fashion.

“Congresswoman Smith, please forgive the condition I was forced to put you in.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” she said defiantly. “Who are you?”

“My name is Paul Suvorov. I represent the Soviet government.”

Contempt flooded into Loren’s voice. “Is this an example of the way Communists treat visiting American VIP’s?”

“Not under ordinary circumstances, but you gave us no choice.”

“Please explain,” she demanded, glaring at him.

He gave her an uncertain look. “I believe you know.”

“Why don’t you refresh my memory.”

He paused to light a cigarette, carelessly tossing the match in the toilet. “The other evening when the helicopter arrived, Captain Pokofsky’s first officer observed you standing very close to the landing area.”

“So were several other passengers,” Loren snapped icily.

“Yes, but they were too far away to see a familiar face.”

“And you think I wasn’t.”

“Why can’t you be reasonable, Congresswoman. Surely you can’t deny you recognized your own colleagues.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Congressman Alan Moran and Senator Marcus Larimer,” he said, closely watching her reaction.

Loren’s eyes widened and suddenly she began to shiver in spite of the stifling heat. For the first time since she was made a prisoner, indignation was replaced by despair.

“Moran and Larimer, they’re both here too?”

He nodded. “In the next cell.”

“This must be an insane joke,” she said, stunned.

“No joke,” Suvorov said, smiling. “They are guests of the KGB, same as you.”

Loren shook her head, unbelieving. Life didn’t happen this way, she told herself, except in nightmares. She felt reality drifting slowly from her grasp.

“I have diplomatic immunity,” she said. “I demand to be released.”

“You carry no influence, not here on board the Leonid Andreyev,” said Suvorov in a cold, disinterested voice.

“When my government hears of this—”

“They won’t,” he interrupted. “When the ship leaves Jamaica on its return voyage to Miami, Captain Pokof-sky will announce with deep regret and sympathy that Congresswoman Loren Smith was lost overboard and presumed drowned.”

A numbing hopelessness seized Loren. “What will happen to Moran and Larimer?”

“I’m taking them to Russia.”

“But you’re going to kill me,” she said, more as a statement than a question.

“They represent senior members of your government. Their knowledge will prove quite useful once they’re persuaded to provide it. You, I’m sorry to say, are not worth the risk.”

Loren almost said, As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I know as much as they do, but she recognized the trap in time and remained silent.

Suvorov’s eyes narrowed. He reached over and tore the dress from in front of her and casually tossed it outside the doorway. “Very nice,” he said. “Perhaps if we were to negotiate, I might find a reason to take you with me to Moscow.”

“The most pathetic trick in the world,” Loren spat contemptuously. “You’re not even original.”

He took a step forward, his hand lashing out and slapping her on the face. She staggered back against the steel bulkhead and sagged to her knees, staring up at him, her eyes blazing with fear and loathing.

He grasped her by the hair and tilted her head back. The conversational politeness disappeared from his voice. “I always wondered what it would be like to screw a high-ranking capitalist bitch.”

Loren’s answer was to swiftly reach out and grab him in the groin, squeezing with all her might.

Suvorov gasped in agony and swung his fist, connecting with her left cheekbone just below the eye. Loren fell sideways into the corner while Suvorov clutched himself and paced the tiny cubicle like a mad animal until the stabbing ache subsided. Then he brutally picked her up and threw her onto the bunk.

He leaned over her and ripped off her underclothes. “You rotten bitch!” he snarled. “I’m going to make you wish for a quick death.”

Tears of agony coursed from Loren’s eyes as she teetered on the verge of unconsciousness. Vaguely, through the mist of pain, she could see Suvorov slowly take off his belt and wrap it around his hand, leaving the buckle free and swinging. She tried to tense her body for the coming blow as his arm lifted upward, but she was too weak.

Suddenly Suvorov seemed to grow a third arm. It snaked over his right shoulder and then locked around his neck. The belt dropped to the deck and his body stiffened.

Shock swept across Suvorov’s face, the shock of disbelief, then horror at the full realization of what was happening, and the torment as his windpipe was slowly and mercilessly crushed and his breathing choked off. He struggled against the relentless pressure, throwing himself around the cell, but the arm remained. In a sudden flash of certainty, he knew he would never live to feel the pressure ease, The terror and the lack of oxygen contorted his face and turned it reddish-blue. His starving lungs struggled for air and his arms flailed in frantic madness.

Loren tried to raise her hands over her face to shut out the horrible sight, but they refused to respond. She could only sit frozen and watch in morbid fascination as the life seeped out of Suvorov; watch his violent thrashings subside until finally the eyes bulged from their sockets and he went limp. He hung there several seconds, supported by the ghostly arm until it pulled away from his neck and he fell on the deck in a heap.

Another figure loomed in Suvorov’s place, standing inside the cell’s doorway, and Loren found herself staring into a friendly face with deep green eyes and a faint crooked grin.

“Just between you and me,” said Pitt, “I’ve never believed that rot about getting there is half the fun.”

56

Noon, a brilliant azure sky with small cottonball clouds nudged by a gentle westerly breeze, found the Leonid Andreyev passing within eighteen miles of Cabo Maisf, the easternmost tip of Cuba. Many of the passengers sunbathing around the swimming pools took no notice of the palm-lined coastline on the horizon. To them it was just another one of the hundred islands they had passed since leaving Florida.

On the bridge, Captain Pokofsky stood with binoculars to his eyes. He was observing a small powerboat that was circling from the land on his starboard quarter. She was old, her bow nearly straight up and down, and her hull was painted black. The topsides were varnished mahogany, and the name Pilar was lettered in gold across her transom. She looked an immaculately kept museum piece. On the ensign staff at her stern she flew the American stars and stripes in the inverted position of distress.

Pokofsky walked over to the automated ship’s control console and pressed the “slow speed” switch. Almost immediately he could feel the engines reduce revolutions. Then, waiting a few minutes until the ship had slowed to a crawl, he leaned over and pressed the lever for “all stop.”

He was about to walk out on the bridge wing when his first officer came hurrying up the companionway from the deck below.

“Captain,” he said, catching his breath. “I’ve just come from the brig area. The prisoners are gone.”

Pokofsky straightened. “Gone? You mean escaped?”

“Yes, sir. I was on a routine inspection when I found the two security guards unconscious and locked up in one of the cells. The KGB agent is dead.”

“Paul Suvorov was killed?”

The first officer nodded. “From all appearances, he was strangled.”

“Why didn’t you call me immediately over the ship’s phone?”

“I thought it best to tell you in person.”

“You’re right, of course,” Pokofsky admitted. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time. Our Cuban security people are arriving to transport the prisoners to shore.”

“If you can stall them, I’m confident a search effort will quickly turn up the Americans.”

Pokofsky stared through the doorway at the closing boat. “They’ll wait,” he said confidently. “Our captives are too important to leave on board.”

“There is one other thing, sir,” said the first officer. “The Americans must have received help.”

“They didn’t break out by themselves?” Pokofsky asked in surprise.

“Not possible. Two old men in a weakened condition and one woman could never have overpowered two security people and murdered a professional KGB man.”

“Damn!” Pokofsky cursed. He rammed a fist into a palm in exasperation, compounded equally by anxiety and anger. “This complicates matters.”

“Could the CIA have sneaked on board?”

“I hardly think so. If the United States government remotely suspected their government leaders were held on the Leonid Andreyev, their Navy would be converging on us like mad bears. See for yourself; no ships, no aircraft, and the Guantanamo Bay naval station is only forty miles away.”

“Then who?” asked the first officer. “Certainly none of our crew.”

“It can only be a passenger,” Pokofsky surmised. He fell silent, thinking. Utter stillness fell on the bridge. At last he looked up and began issuing orders. “Collect every available officer and form five-man search parties. Divide up the ship in sections from keel to sun deck. Alert the security guards and enlist the stewards. If questioned by the passengers, make up a believable pretext for entering their cabins. Changing the bed linen, repairing plumbing, inspecting fire equipment, any story that fits the situation. Say or do nothing that will cause suspicion among the passengers or set them to asking embarrassing questions. Be as subtle as possible and refrain from violence, but recapture the Smith woman and the two men quickly.”

“What about Suvorov’s body?”

Pokofsky didn’t hesitate. “Arrange a fitting tribute to our comrade from the KGB,” he said sarcastically. “As soon as it’s dark, throw him overboard with the garbage.”

“Yes, sir,” the first officer acknowledged with a smile and hurried away.

Pokofsky picked up a bullhorn from a bulkhead rack and stepped out on the bridge wing. The small pleasure boat was drifting about fifty yards away.

“Are you in distress?” he asked, his voice booming over the water.

A man with a squat body and the skin tone of an old wallet cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted back. “We have people who are quite ill. I suspect ptomaine poisoning. May we come aboard and use your medical facilities?”

“By all means,” Pokofsky replied. “Come alongside. I’ll drop the gangway.”

Pitt watched the mini-drama with interest, seeing through the sham. Two men and a woman struggled up the metal stairway, clutching their midriffs and pretending they were in the throes of abdominal agony. He rated them two stars for their performance.

After a suitable length of time for pseudodoctoring, he reasoned, Loren, Moran and Larimer would have taken their places in the pleasure boat. He also knew full well the captain would not resume the cruise until the ship was scoured and the congressmen apprehended.

He left the railing and mingled with the other passengers, who soon returned to their deck chairs and tables around the swimming pools and cocktail bars. He took the elevator down to his deck. As the doors opened and he stepped out into the passageway, he rubbed shoulders with a steward who was entering.

Pitt idly noticed the steward was Asian, probably Mongolian if he was serving on a Russian ship. He brushed past and continued to his cabin.

The steward stared at Pitt curiously. Then his expression turned to blank astonishment as he watched Pitt walk away. He was still standing there gawking when the door closed and the elevator rose without him.

Pitt rounded the corner of the passageway and spied a ship’s officer with several crewmen waiting outside a cabin three down and across from his. None of them displayed their usual shipboard conviviality. Their expressions looked deadly earnest. He fished in his pocket for the cabin key while watching out of the corner of one eye. In a few moments, a stewardess came out and said a few words in Russian to the officer and shook her head. Then they moved toward the next cabin and knocked.

Pitt quickly entered and closed the door. The tiny enclosure looked like a scene out of a Marx Brothers movie. Loren was perched on the upper pullman bunk while Moran and Larimer shared the lower. All three were ravenously attacking a tray of hors d’oeuvres that Giordino had smuggled from the dining-room buffet table.

Giordino, seated on a small chair, half in the bathroom, threw an offhand wave. “See anything interesting?”

“The Cuban connection arrived,” Pitt answered. “They’re drifting alongside, standing by to exchange passengers.”

“The bastards will have a long wait,” said Giordino.

“Try four minutes. That’s how long before we’ll all be chained and tossed on a boat bound for Havana.”

“They can’t help but find us,” Larimer uttered in a hollow voice. Pitt had seen many such washed-out men — the waxen skin, the eyes that once blazed with authority now empty, the vagrant thoughts. Despite his age and long years of self-indulgent living amid the political arena, Larimer was still a powerfully built man. But the heart and circulation were no longer up to the stress and dangers of staying alive in a hostile situation. Pitt didn’t require an internship to recognize a man who was in dire need of medical treatment.

“A Russian search party is just across the hall,” Pitt explained.

“We can’t let them imprison us again,” Moran shouted, springing to his feet and looking around wildly. “We must run!”

“You wouldn’t make the elevator,” snapped Pitt, grabbing him by the arm as he would a child throwing a tantrum. He didn’t much care for Moran. The Speaker of the House struck him as an oily weasel.

“There’s no place to hide,” said Loren, her voice not quite steady.

Pitt didn’t answer her but brushed past Giordino and went into the bathroom. He pulled back the shower curtain and turned on the hot water. Less than a minute later clouds of steam billowed into the cramped quarters.

“Okay,” Pitt directed, “everybody in the shower.”

Nobody moved. They all stared at him, standing wraithlike in the mist-filled doorway, as though he was from another earth.

“Move!” he said sharply. “They’ll be here any second.”

Giordino shook his head in bewilderment. “How are you going to get three people in that stall shower? It’s hardly big enough for one.”

“Get your wig on. You’re going in too.”

“The four of us?” Loren muttered incredulously.

“Either that or a free trip to Moscow. Besides, college kids cram entire fraternities in phone booths all the time.”

Giordino slipped the wig over his head as Pitt reentered the bathroom and turned the water to lukewarm. He placed a trembling Moran in a squatting position between Giordino’s legs. Larimer pressed his heavy body against the far corner of the stall as Loren climbed on Giordino’s back. At last they were jammed awkwardly into the stall, drenched by the flow from the shower head. Pitt was in the act of turning on the hot water in the sink to increase the steam cloud when he heard a knock on the door.

He hurried over and opened it so there was no suspicious hesitation. The ship’s first officer bowed slightly and smiled.

“Mr. Gruber, is it? Very sorry to bother you, but we’re making a routine inspection of the fire sprinklers. Do you mind if we enter?”

“Why, sure,” Pitt said obligingly. “No problem with me, but my wife’s in the shower.”

The officer nodded to the stewardess who eased past Pitt and made a show of checking the overhead sprinkler heads. Then she pointed to the bathroom door. “May I?”

“Go on in,” said Pitt good-naturedly. “She won’t mind.”

The stewardess opened the door and was enveloped in a cloud of steam. Pitt went over and leaned in the bathroom. “Hey, luv, our steward lady wants to check the fire sprinkler. All right with you?”

As the cloud began dissipating through the door, the stewardess saw a huge stringy mop of hair and a pair of heavy browed eyes peeking around the shower curtain.

“All right by me,” came Loren’s voice. “And could you bring us a couple of extra towels when you think of it?”

The stewardess simply nodded and said, “I’ll be back with the towels shortly.”

Pitt casually munched on a canapé and offered one to the first officer, who gave a polite shake of his head.

“Does my heart good to see you people so interested in the safety of the passengers,” said Pitt.

“Merely doing our duty,” said the first officer, looking curiously at the half-eaten stack of hors d’oeuvres. “I see you also enjoy our shipboard cuisine.”

“My wife and I love appetizers,” said Pitt. “We’d rather eat these than a main course.”

The stewardess came out of the bathroom and said something to the first officer. The only word Pitt made out was “nyet.”

“Sorry to have troubled you,” said the first officer courteously.

“Any time,” replied Pitt.

As soon as the door lock clicked, Pitt rushed to the bathroom. “Everybody stay just as you are,” he ordered. “Don’t move.” Then he reclined on a bunk and stuffed his mouth with caviar on thin toast.

Two minutes later the door suddenly popped open and the stewardess burst through like a bulldozer, her eyes darting around the cabin.

“Can I help you?” Pitt mumbled with a full mouth.

“I brought the towels,” she said.

“Just throw them on the bathroom sink,” Pitt said indifferently.

She did precisely that and left the cabin, throwing Pitt a smile that was genuine and devoid of any suspicion.

He waited another two minutes, then opened the door a crack and peered into the passageway. The search crew was entering a cabin near the end of the passageway. He returned to the bathroom, reached in and turned off the water.

Whoever coined the phrase They look like drowned rats must have had the poor souls huddled together in that pocket-sized shower in mind. Their fingertips were beginning to shrivel and all their clothing was soaked through.

Giordino came out first and hurled his sopping wig in the sink. Loren climbed off his back and immediately began drying her hair. Pitt helped Moran to his feet and half carried Larimer to a bunk.

“A wise move,” said Pitt to Loren, kissing her on the nape of the neck. “Asking for more towels.”

“It struck me as the thing to do.”

“Are we safe now?” asked Moran. “Will they be back?”

“We won’t be in the clear till we’re off the ship,” said Pitt. “And we can count on their paying an encore visit. When they come up dry on this search, they’ll redouble their efforts for a second.”

“Got any more brilliant escape tricks up your sleeve, Houdini?” asked Giordino.

“Yes,” Pitt replied, sure as the devil. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

57

The second engineer moved along a catwalk between the massive fuel tanks that towered two decks above him. He was running a routine maintenance check for any trace of leakage in the pipes that transferred the oil to the boilers that provided steam for the Leonid Andreyev’s 27,000-horsepower turbines.

He whistled to himself, his only accompaniment coming from the hum of the turbo-generators beyond the forward bulkhead. Every so often he wiped a rag around a pipe fitting or valve, nodding in satisfaction when it came away clean.

Suddenly he stopped and cocked an ear. The sound of metal striking against metal came from a narrow walkway leading off to his right. Curious, he walked slowly, quietly along the dimly lit access. At the end, where the walkway turned and passed between the fuel tanks and the inner plates of the hull, he paused and peered into the gloom.

A figure in a steward’s uniform appeared to be attaching something to the side of the fuel tank. The second engineer approached, stepping softly, until he was only ten feet away.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

The steward slowly turned and straightened. The engineer could see he was Oriental. The white uniform was soiled with grime, and a seaman’s duffel bag lay open behind him on the walkway. The steward flashed a wide smile and made no effort to reply.

The engineer moved a few steps closer. “You’re not supposed to be here. This area is off limits to the passenger service crew.”

Still no answer.

Then the engineer noticed a strange misshapen lump pressed against the side of the fuel tank. Two strands of copper wire ran from it to a clock mechanism beside the duffel bag.

“A bomb!” he blurted in shock. “You’re planting a damn bomb!”

He swung around and began running wildly down the walkway, shouting. He’d taken no more than five steps when the narrow steel confines echoed with a noise like twin handclaps in quick succession, and the hollow-point bullets from a silenced automatic tore into the back of his head.

The obligatory toasts were voiced and the glasses of iced vodka downed and quickly refilled. Pokofsky did the honors from the liquor cabinet in his cabin, avoiding the cold, piercing gaze of the man seated on a leather sofa.

Geidar Ombrikov, chief of the KGB residency in Havana, was not in a congenial mood. “Your report won’t sit well with my superiors,” he said. “An agent lost under your command will be considered a clear case of negligence.”

“This is a cruise ship,” Pokofsky said, his face reddening in resentment. “She was designed and placed in service for the purpose of bringing in hard Western currency for the Soviet treasury. We are not a floating headquarters for the Committee for State Security.”

“Then how do you explain the ten agents our foreign directorate assigned on board your vessel to monitor the conversations of the passengers?”

“I try not to think about it.”

“You should,” Ombrikov said in a threatening tone.

“I have enough to keep me busy running this ship,” Pokofsky said quickly. “There aren’t enough hours in my day to include intelligence gathering too.”

“Still, you should have taken better precautions. If the American politicians escape and tell their story, the horrendous repercussions will have a disastrous effect on our foreign relations.”

Pokofsky set his vodka on the liquor cabinet without touching it. “There is no place they can hide for long on this ship. They will be back in our hands inside the hour.”

“I do hope so,” said Ombrikov acidly. “Their Navy will begin to wonder why a Soviet cruise liner is drifting around off their precious Cuban base and send out a patrol.”

“They wouldn’t dare board the Leonid Andreyev.”

“No, but my small pleasure boat is flying the United States flag. They won’t hesitate to come aboard for an inspection.”

“She’s an interesting old boat,” Pokofsky said, trying to change the subject. “Where did you find her?”

“A personal loan from our friend Castro,” Ombrikov replied. “She used to belong to the author Ernest Hemingway.”

“Yes, I’ve read four of his books—”

Pokofsky was interrupted by the sudden appearance of his first officer, who entered without knocking.

“My apologies for breaking in, Captain, but may I have a word in private with you?”

Pokofsky excused himself and stepped outside his cabin.

“What is it?”

“We failed to find them,” the officer announced uneasily.

Pokofsky paused for some moments, lit a cigarette in defiance of his own regulations and gave his first officer a look of disapproval. “Then I suggest you search the ship again, more carefully this time. And take a closer look at the passengers wandering the decks. They may be hiding in the crowd.”

His first officer nodded and hurried off. Pokofsky returned to his cabin.

“Problems?” Ombrikov asked.

Before Pokofsky could answer he felt a slight shudder run through the ship. He stood there curious for perhaps half a minute, tensed and alert, but nothing more seemed to happen.

Then suddenly the Leonid Andreyev was rocked by a violent explosion that heeled her far over to starboard, flinging people off their feet and sending a convulsive shock wave throughout the ship. A great sheet of fire erupted from the port side of the hull, raining fiery steel debris and oil over the exposed decks. The blast reverberated over the water until it finally died away, leaving an unearthly silence in its wake and a solid column of black smoke that mushroomed into the sky.

What none of the seven hundred passengers and crew knew, what many of them would never come to learn, was that deep amidship the fuel tanks had detonated, blowing a gaping hole half above and half below the waterline, spraying a torrent of burning oil over the superstructure in blue and green flames, scarring the victims and blazing across the teak decks with the speed of a brushfire.

Almost instantly, the Leonid Andreyev was transformed from a luxurious cruise liner into a sinking fiery pyre.

Pitt stirred and wondered dully what had happened. For a full minute as the shock wore off he remained prone on the deck, where he’d been thrown by the force of the concussion, trying to orient himself. Slowly he rose to his hands and knees, then hoisted his aching body erect by grabbing the inner doorknob. Bruised but still functioning, nothing broken or out of joint, he turned to examine the others.

Giordino was partly crouched, partly lying across the threshold of the shower stall. The last thing he remembered was sitting in the cabin. He wore a surprised look in his eyes, but he appeared unhurt. Moran and Loren had fallen out of the bunks and were lying in the middle of the deck. They were both dazed and would carry a gang of black and blue marks for a week or two, but were otherwise uninjured.

Larimer was huddled in the far corner of the cabin. Pitt went over and gently lifted his head. There was an ugly welt rising above the senator’s left temple and a trickle of blood dripped from a cut lip. He was unconscious but breathing easily. Pitt eased a pillow from the lower bunk under his head.

Giordino was the first to speak. “How is he?”

“Just knocked out,” Pitt replied.

“What happened?” Loren murmured dazedly.

“An explosion,” said Pitt. “Somewhere forward, probably in the engine room.”

“The boilers?” Giordino speculated.

“Modern boilers are safety-designed not to blow.”

“God,” said Loren, “my ears are still ringing.”

A strange expression came over Giordino’s face. He took a coin out of his pocket and rolled it across the hard-carpeted deck. Instead of losing its momentum and circling until falling on one side, it maintained its speed across the cabin as though propelled by an unseen hand and clinked into the far bulkhead.

“The ship’s listing,” Giordino announced flatly.

Pitt went over and cracked the door. Already the passageway was filling with passengers stumbling out of their cabins and wandering aimlessly in bewilderment. “So much for plan B.”

Loren gave him a quizzical look. “Plan B?”

“My idea to steal the boat from Cuba. I don’t think we’re going to find seats.”

“What are you talking about?” Moran demanded. He rose unsteadily to his feet, holding on to a bunk chain for support. “A trick. It’s a cheap trick to flush us out.”

“Damned expensive trick if you ask me,” Giordino said nastily. “The explosion must have seriously damaged the ship. She’s obviously taking on water.”

“Will we sink?” Moran asked anxiously.

Pitt ignored him and peered around the edge of the door again. Most of the passengers acted calm, but a few were beginning to shout and cry. As he watched, the passageway became clogged with people stupidly carrying armfuls of personal belongings and hastily packed suitcases. Then Pitt caught the smell of burning paint, quickly followed by the sight of a smoky wisp. He slammed the door and began tearing the blankets off the bunks and throwing them to Giordino.

“Hurry, soak these and any towels you can find in the shower!”

Giordino took one look at Pitt’s dead-serious expression and did as he was told. Loren knelt and tried to lift Larimer’s head and shoulders from the deck. The senator moaned and opened his eyes, looking up at Loren as if trying to recognize her. Moran cringed against the bulkhead, muttering to himself.

Pitt rudely pushed Loren aside and lifted Larimer to his feet, slinging one arm around his shoulder.

Giordino came out of the bathroom and distributed the wet blankets and towels.

“All right, Al, you help me with the senator. Loren, you hold on to Congressman Moran and stick close behind me.” He broke off and looked at everyone. “Okay, here we go.”

He yanked open the door and was engulfed by a rolling wall of smoke that came out of nowhere.

Almost before the explosion faded, Captain Pokofsky shook off stunned disbelief and rushed to the bridge. The young watch officer was pounding desperately on the automated ship console in agonized frustration.

“Close all watertight doors and actuate the fire control system!” Pokofsky shouted.

“I can’t!” the watch officer cried helplessly. “We’ve lost all power!”

“What about the auxiliary generators?”

“They’re out too.” The watch officer’s face was wrapped in undisguised shock. “The ship’s phones are dead. The damage-control computer is down. Nothing responds. We can’t give a general alarm.”

Pokofsky ran out on the bridge wing and stared aft. His once beautiful ship was vomiting fire and smoke from her entire midsection. A few moments before there was music and relaxed gaiety. Now the entire scene was one of horror. The open swimming pool and lounge decks had been turned into a crematorium. The two hundred people stretched under the sun were almost instantly incinerated by the tidal fall of fiery oil. Some had saved themselves by leaping into the pools, only to die after surfacing for air when the heat seared their lungs, and many had climbed the railings and thrown themselves overboard, their skin and brief clothing ablaze.

Pokofsky stood sick and stunned at the sight of the carnage. It was a moment in time borrowed from hell. He knew in his heart that his ship was lost. There was no stopping the holocaust, and the list was increasing as the sea poured into the Leonid Andreyev’s bowels. He returned to the bridge.

“Pass the word to abandon ship,” he said to the watch officer. “The port boats are burning. Load what women and children you can into the starboard boats still intact.”

As the watch officer hurried off, the chief engineer, Erik Kazinkin, appeared, out of breath from his climb from below. His eyebrows and half his hair were singed away. The soles of his shoes were smoldering but he appeared not to notice. His mind was numb to the pain.

“Give me a report,” Pokofsky ordered in a quiet tone. “What caused the explosion?”

“The fuel tank blew,” answered Kazinkin. “God knows why. Took out the power generating room and the auxiliary generator compartment as well. Boiler rooms two and three are flooded. We managed to manually close the watertight doors to the engine rooms, but she’s taking on water at an alarming rate. And without power to operate the pumps…” He shrugged defeatedly without continuing.

All options to save the Leonid Andreyev had evaporated. The only morbid question was whether she would become a burned-out derelict or sink first? Few would survive the next hour, Pokofsky accepted with dread certainty. Many would burn and many would drown, unable to enter the pitifully few lifeboats that were still able to be launched.

“Bring your men up from below,” said Pokofsky. “We’re abandoning the ship.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said the chief engineer. He held out his hand. “Good luck to you.”

They parted and Pokofsky headed for the communications room one deck below. The officer in charge looked up from the radio as the captain suddenly strode through the doorway.

“Send out the distress call,” Pokofsky ordered.

“I took the responsibility, sir, of sending out Mayday signals immediately after the explosion.”

Pokofsky placed a hand on the officer’s shoulder. “I commend your initiative.” Then he asked calmly, “Have you managed to transmit without problem?”

“Yes, sir. When the power supply went off, I switched to the emergency batteries. The first response came from a Korean container ship only ten miles to the southwest.”

“Thank God someone is close. Any other replies?”

“The United States Navy at Guantanamo Bay is responding with rescue ships and helicopters. The only other vessel within fifty miles is a Norwegian cruise ship.”

“Too late for her,” said Pokofsky thoughtfully. “We’ll have to pin our hopes on the Koreans and American Navy.”

With the soaked blanket over his head, Pitt had to feel his way along the passageway and up the smoke-filled staircase. Three, four times he and Giordino tripped over the bodies of passengers who had succumbed to asphyxiation.

Larimer made a game effort of trying to keep in step, while Loren and Moran stumbled along behind, their hands clutching the belted trousers of Pitt and Giordino.

“How far?” Loren gasped.

“We have to climb four decks before we break out on the open promenade area,” Pitt panted in reply.

At the second landing they ran into a solid wall of people. The staircase became so packed with passengers struggling to escape the smoke it became impossible to take another step. The crew acted with coolness, attempting to direct the human flow to the boat deck, but calm gave way to the inevitable contagion of panic, and they were trampled under the screaming, terror-driven mass of thrashing bodies.

“To the left!” Giordino shouted in Pitt’s ear. “The passageway leads to another staircase toward the stern.”

Relying on a deep trust in his little friend, Pitt veered down the passageway, pulling Larimer along. The senator finally managed to get his footing on the smooth surface and began carrying his own weight. To their vast relief the smoke decreased and the frightened tidal wave of people thinned. When at last they reached the aft staircase they found it practically empty. By not following the herd instinct, Giordino had led them to temporary safety.

They emerged in the clear on the deck aft of the observation lounge. After a few moments to ease their coughing spasms and cleanse their aching lungs with clean air, they looked in awe over the doomed ship.

The Leonid Andreyev was listing twenty degrees to port. Thousands of gallons of oil had spilled out into the sea and ignited. The water around the jagged opening caused by the blast was a mass of fire. The entire midsection of the ship was a blazing torch. The tremendous heat was turning steel plates red hot and warping them into twisted, grotesque shapes. White paint was blistering black, teak decks were nearly burned through and the glass in the portholes popped like gunshots.

The flames spread with incredible speed as the ocean breeze fanned them toward the bridge. Already the communications room was consumed and the officer in charge burned to death at his radio. Fire and swirling smoke shot upward through the companion-ways and ventilating ducts. The Leonid Andreyev, like all modern cruise liners, was designed and constructed to be fireproof, but no precise planning or visionary foresight could have predicted the devastating results of a fuel tank explosion that showered the ship like a flamethrower.

An immense billowing cloud of oily smoke reached hundreds of feet above, flattening in the upper air currents, stretching over the ship like a pall. The base of the cloud was a solid torrent of flame that twisted and surged in a violent storm of orange and yellow. While below, in the deeper reaches of the hull, the flames were an acetylene blue-white, fed into molten temperatures by the intake of air through the shattered plates, creating the effect of a blast furnace.

Though many of the passengers were able to fight their way up the stairways, over a hundred lay dead below, some trapped and burned in their cabins, others overtaken by smoke inhalation during their attempt to escape topside. The ones who made it were being driven by the flames toward the stern and away from the lifeboats.

All efforts by the crew to maintain order were engulfed by the chaos. The passengers were finally left to fend for themselves and no one knew which way to turn. All port lifeboats were ablaze, and only three were lowered on the starboard side before the fire drove the crew back. As it was, one boat was beginning to burn by the time it hit the sea.

Now people began jumping into the water like migrating lemmings. The drop was nearly fifty feet, and a number of those who had life jackets made the mistake of inflating them before plummeting over the side and broke their necks on impact. Women stood spellbound with terror, too frightened to leap. Men cursed in desperation. In the water the swimmers struck out for the few lifeboats, but the crews who manned them started up the engines and sailed beyond reach for fear of being swamped by overloading.

In the middle of the frenzied drama, the container ship arrived. The captain eased his vessel within a hundred yards of the Leonid Andreyev and put his boats over as fast as they could be lowered. A few minutes later, U.S. Navy sea rescue helicopters appeared and began plucking survivors from the sea.

58

Loren gazed in abstract fascination at the sheet of advancing fire. “Shouldn’t we jump or something?” she asked in a vague tone.

Pitt didn’t answer immediately. He studied the slanting deck and judged the list to be about forty degrees. “No call to rush things,” he said with expressionless calm. “The flames won’t reach us for another ten minutes. The further the ship heels to port, the shorter the distance to jump. In the meantime, I suggest we start heaving deck chairs overboard so those poor souls in the water have something to hang on to until they’re picked up.”

Surprisingly, Larimer was the first to react. He began sweeping up the wooden deck chairs in his massive arms and dropping them over the railings. He actually had the look on his face of a man who was enjoying himself. Moran stood huddled against a bulwark, silent, noncommittal, frozen in fear.

“Take care you don’t hit a swimmer on the head,” Pitt said to Larimer.

“I wouldn’t dare,” the senator replied with an exhausted smile. “They might be a constituent and I’d lose their vote.”

After all the chairs in sight had gone over the side, Pitt stood for two or three seconds and took stock. The blast from the heat was not yet unbearable. The fire wouldn’t kill those packed on the stern deck, at least not for a few more minutes. He shouldered his way through the dense throng to the port railing again. The waves rolled only twenty feet below.

He shouted to Giordino, “Let’s help these people over the side.” Then he turned and cupped his hands to his mouth.

“There’s no more time to lose!” he yelled at the top of his lungs to make himself heard over the din of the frightened crowd and the roar of the holocaust. “Swim for it or die!”

Several men took the hint and, clutching the hands of their protesting wives, straddled the railing and slipped out of sight below. Next came three teenage girls who showed no hesitation but dove cleanly into the blue-green swells.

“Swim to a deck chair and use it for a float,” Giordino instructed everyone repeatedly.

Pitt separated families into a group and while Loren cheered the children, he directed their parents to jump and latch onto a floating deck chair. Then he held the children over the side by the hands as far as he could reach and let them drqp, holding his breath until the mother and father had them safely in tow.

The great curtain of flame crept closer and breathing became more difficult. The heat felt as though they were standing in front of an open furnace. A rough head count told Pitt only thirty people were left, but it would be a close race.

A great hulking fat man stopped and refused to move. “The water’s full of sharks!” he screamed hysterically. “We’re better off here, waiting for the helicopters.”

“They can’t hover over the ship because of air turbulence from the heat,” Pitt explained patiently. “You can burn to a cinder or take your chances in the water. Which is it? Be quick, you’re holding up the others.”

Giordino took two paces, tensed his powerful muscles and lifted the fat procrastinator off his feet. There was no animosity, no expression of meanness in Giordino’s unblinking eyes as he carried the man to the side and unceremoniously dumped him overboard.

“Send me a postcard,” Giordino shouted after him.

The diverting action seemed to motivate the few passengers who hung back. One after the other, with Pitt assisting the elderly couples to take the plunge, they departed the burning ship.

When the last of them was finally gone, Pitt looked around at Loren. “Your turn,” he said.

“Not without my colleagues,” she said with a feminine resolve.

Pitt stared below to make certain the water was clear. Larimer was so weak he could barely lift his legs over the rail. Giordino gave him a hand as Loren jumped arm in arm with Moran. Pitt watched anxiously until they all cleared the side and swam away, admiring Loren’s endurance as she shouted words of encouragement to Larimer while towing Moran by the collar.

“Better give her a hand,” Pitt said to Giordino.

His friend didn’t have to be urged. He was gone before another word passed between them.

Pitt took one last look at the Leonid Andreyev. The air around shimmered from the blasting heat waves as flames shot from her every opening. The list was passing fifty degrees and her end was only minutes away. Already her starboard propeller was clear of the water and steam was hissing in white tortured clouds around her waterline.

As he was poised to leap, Pitt abruptly went rigid in astonishment. At the outer edge of his peripheral vision he saw an arm snake out of a cabin porthole forty feet away. Without hesitation, he picked up one of the still soggy blankets from the deck, threw it over his head and covered the distance in seven strides. A voice inside the cabin was screaming for help. He peered in and saw a woman’s face, eyes wide in terror.

“Oh, my God, please help us?”

“How many are you?”

“Myself and two children.”

“Pass out the kids.”

The face disappeared and quickly a boy about six years of age was thrust through the narrow port. Pitt set him between his legs, keeping the blanket suspended above the two of them like a tent. Next came a little girl no more than three. Incredibly she was sound asleep.

“Give me your hand,” Pitt ordered, knowing in his heart it was hopeless.

“I can’t get through!” the woman cried. “The opening is too small.”

“Do you have water in the bathroom?”

“There’s no pressure.”

“Strip naked!” Pitt shouted in desperation. “Use your cosmetics. Smear your body with facial creams.”

The woman nodded in understanding and disappeared inside. Pitt turned and, clutching a child under each arm, rushed to the rail. With great relief he spied Giordino treading water, looking up.

“Al,” Pitt called. “Catch.”

If Giordino was surprised to see Pitt collar two more children he didn’t show it. He reached up and gathered them in as effortlessly as if they were footballs.

“Jump!” he yelled to Pitt. “She’s going over.”

Without lingering to answer, Pitt raced back to the cabin port. He realized with only a small corner of his mind that saving the mother was a sheer act of desperation. He passed beyond conscious thought; his movements seemed those of another man, a total stranger.

The air was so hot and dry his perspiration evaporated before it seeped from his pores. The heat rose from the deck and penetrated the soles of his shoes. He stumbled and nearly fell as a heavy shudder ran through the doomed ship, and she gave a sudden lurch as the deck dropped on an increasing angle to port. She was in her final death agony before capsizing and sinking to the sea bottom.

Pitt found himself kneeling against the slanting cabin wall, reaching through the port. A pair of hands clasped his wrists and he pulled. The woman’s shoulders and breasts squeezed past the opening. He gave another heave and then her hips scraped through.

The flames were running up and licking at his back. The deck was dropping away beneath his feet. He held the woman around the waist and leaped off the edge of the cabin as the Leonid Andreyev rolled over, her propellers twisting out of the water and arching toward the sun.

They were sucked under by the fierce rush of water, swirled around like dolls in a maelstrom. Pitt lashed out with his free hand and feet and struggled upward, seeing the glimmering surface turn from green to blue with agonizing slowness.

The blood pounded in his ears and his lungs felt as though they were filled with angry wasps. The thin veil of blackness began to tint his vision. He felt the woman go limp under his arm, her body creating an unwelcome drag against his progress. He used up the last particles of oxygen, and a pyrotechnic display flared inside his head. One burst became a bright orange ball that expanded until it exploded in a wavering flash.

He broke through the surface, his upturned face directed at the afternoon sun. Thankfully he inhaled deep waves of air, enough to ease the blackness, the pounding and the sting in his lungs. Then he quickly circled the woman’s abdomen and squeezed hard several times, forcing the salt water from her throat. She convulsed and began retching, followed by a coughing spell. Only when her breathing returned to near normal and she groaned did he look around for the others.

Giordino was swimming in Pitt’s direction, pushing one of the deck chairs in front of him. The two children were sitting on top, immune to the tragedy around them, gaily laughing at Giordino’s repertory of funny faces.,

“I was beginning to wonder if you were going to turn up,” he said.

“Bad pennies usually do,” said Pitt, keeping the children’s mother afloat until she recovered enough to hang on to the deck chair.

“I’ll take care of them,” said Giordino. “You better help Loren. I think the senator’s bought it.”

His arms felt as if they were encased in lead and he was numb with exhaustion, but Pitt carved the water with swift even strokes until he reached the floating jetsam that supported Loren and Larimer.

Gray-faced, her eyes filled with sadness, Loren grimly held the senator’s head above water. Pitt saw with sinking heart she needn’t have bothered; Larimer would never sit in the Senate again. His skin was mottled and turning a dusky purple. He was game to the end, but the half-century of living in the fast lane had called in the inevitable IOU’s. His heart had gone far beyond its limits and finally quit in protest.

Gently, Pitt pried Loren’s hands from the senator’s body, and pushed him away. She looked at him blankly as if to object, then turned away, unable to watch as Larimer slowly drifted off, gently pushed by the rolling sea.

“He deserves a state funeral,” she said, her voice a husky whisper.

“No matter,” said Pitt, “as long as they know he went out a man.”

Loren seemed to accept that. She leaned her head on Pitt’s shoulder, the tears intermingling with the salt water on her cheeks.

Pitt twisted and looked around. “Where’s Moran?”

“He was picked up by a Navy helicopter.”

“He deserted you?” Pitt asked incredulously.

“The crewman shouted that he only had room for one more.”

“So the illustrious Speaker of the House left a woman to support a dying man while he saved himself.”

Pitt’s dislike for Moran burned with a cold flame. He became obsessed with the idea of ramming his fist into the little ferret’s face.

Captain Pokofsky sat in the cabin of the powerboat, his hands clasped over his ears to shut out the terrible cries of the people drowning in the water and the screams of those suffering the agony of their burns. He could not bring himself to look upon the indescribable horror or watch the Leonid Andreyev plunge out of sight to the seabed two thousand fathoms below. He was a living dead man.

He looked up at Geidar Ombrikov through glazed and listless eyes. “Why did you save me? Why didn’t you let me die with my ship?”

Ombrikov could plainly see Pokofsky was suffering from severe shock, but he felt no pity for the man. Death was an element the KGB agent was trained to accept. His duty came before all consideration of compassion.

“I’ve no time for rituals of the sea,” he said coldly. “The noble captain standing on the bridge saluting the flag as his ship sinks under him is so much garbage. State Security needs you, Pokofsky, and I need you to identify the American legislators.”

“They’re probably dead,” Pokofsky muttered distantly.

“Then we’ll have to prove it,” Ombrikov snapped ruthlessly. “My superiors won’t accept less than positive identification of their bodies. Nor can we overlook the possibility they may still be alive out there in the water.”

Pokofsky placed his hands over his face and shuddered. “I can’t—”

Before the words were out of his mouth, Ombrikov roughly dragged him to his feet and shoved him out on the open deck. “Damn you!” he shouted. “Look for them!”

Pokofsky clenched his jaws and stared at the appalling reality of the floating wreckage and hundreds of struggling men, women and children. He choked off a sound deep inside him, his face blanched.

“No!” he shouted. He leaped over the side so quickly, suddenly, neither Ombrikov nor his crew could stop him. He hit the water swimming and dove deep until the white of his uniform was lost to view on the surface.

The boats from the container ship hauled in the survivors as fast as they could reach them, quickly filling to capacity and unloading their human cargo before returning to the center of the flotsam to continue the rescue. The sea was filled with debris of all kinds, dead bodies of all ages, and those still fighting to live. Fortunately the water was warm and none suffered from exposure, nor did the threat of sharks ever materialize.

One boat jockeyed close to Giordino, who helped lift the mother and her two children on board. Then he scrambled over the freeboard and motioned for the helmsman to steer toward Pitt and Loren. They were among the last few to be fished out.

As the boat slipped alongside, Pitt raised his hand in greeting to the short, stocky figure that leaned over the side.

“Hello,” Pitt said, grinning widely. “Are we ever glad to see you.”

“Happy to be of service,” replied the steward Pitt had passed earlier at the elevator. He was also grinning, baring a set of large upper teeth parted by a wide gap.

He reached down, grasped Loren by the wrists and pulled her effortlessly out of the water and into the boat. Pitt stretched out his hand, but the steward ignored it.

“Sorry,” he said, “we have no more room.”

“What — what are you talking about?” Pitt demanded. “The boat is half empty.”

“You are not welcome aboard my vessel.”

“You damned well don’t even own it.”

“Oh, but I do.”

Pitt stared at the steward in sheer incredulity, then slowly turned and took one long comprehensive look across the water at the container ship. The name of the starboard bow was Chalmette, but the lettering on the sides of the containers stacked on the main deck read “Bougainville.” Pitt felt as though he’d been kicked in the stomach.

“Our confrontation is a lucky circumstance for me, Mr. Pitt, but I fear a misfortune for yourself.”

Pitt stared at the steward. “You know me?”

The grin turned into an expression of hate and contempt. “Only too well. Your meddling has cost Bougainville Maritime dearly.”

“Tell me who are you?” asked Pitt, stalling for time and desperately glancing in the sky for a Navy recovery helicopter.

“I don’t think I’ll give you the satisfaction,” the steward said with all the warmth of a frozen food locker.

Unable to hear the conversation, Loren pulled at the steward’s arm. “Why don’t you bring him on board? What are you waiting for?”

He turned and savagely backhanded her across the cheek, sending her stumbling backward, falling across two survivors who sat in stunned surprise.

Giordino, who was standing in the stern of the boat, started forward. A seaman produced an automatic shotgun from under a seat and rammed the wooden shoulder stock into his stomach. Giordino’s jaw dropped open; he gasped for breath and lost his footing, dropping partially over the side of the boat, arms trailing in the water.

The steward’s lips tightened and the smooth yellow features bore no readable expression. Only his eyes shone with evil. “Thank you for being so cooperative, Mr. Pitt. Thank you for so thoughtfully coming to me.”

“Get screwed!” Pitt snapped in defiance.

The steward raised an oar over his head. “Bon voyage, Dirk Pitt.”

The oar swung downward and clipped Pitt on the right side of his chest, driving him under the water. The wind was crushed from his lungs and a stabbing pain swept over his rib cage. He resurfaced and lifted his left arm above his head to ward off the next inevitable blow. His move came too late. The oar in the hands of the steward mashed Pitt’s extended arm down and struck the top of his head.

The blue sky turned to black as consciousness left him, and slowly Pitt drifted under the lifeboat and sank out of sight.

59

The President’s wife entered his second-floor study, kissed him good night and went off to bed. He sat in a soft high-back embroidered chair and studied a pile of statistics on the latest economic forecasts. Using a large yellow legal pad, he scribbled a prodigious amount of notes. Some he saved, some he tore up and discarded before they were completed. After nearly three hours, he removed his glasses and closed his tired eyes for a few moments.

When he opened them again, he was no longer in his White House study, but in a small gray room with a high ceiling and no windows.

He rubbed his eyes and looked once more, blinking in the monotone light.

He was still in the gray room, only now he found himself seated in a hard wooden chair, his ankles strapped to square carved legs and his hands to the armrests.

A violent fear coursed through him, and he cried for his wife and the Secret Service guards, but the voice was not his. It had a different tonal quality, deeper, more coarse.

Soon a door that was recessed into one wall swung inward and a small man with a thin, intelligent face entered. His eyes had a dark, bemused look, and he carried a syringe in one hand.

“How are we today, Mr. President?” he asked politely.

Strangely, the words were foreign, but the President understood them perfectly. Then he heard himself shouting repeatedly, “I am Oskar Belkaya, I am not the President of the United States, I am Oskar—” He broke off as the intruder plunged the needle into his arm.

The bemused expression never left the little man’s face; it might have been glued there. He nodded toward the doorway and another man wearing a drab prison uniform came in and set a cassette recorder on a Spartan metal table that was bolted to the floor. He wired the recorder to four small eyelets on the table’s surface and left.

“So you won’t knock your new lesson on the floor, Mr. President,” said the thin man. “I hope you find it interesting.” Then he switched on the recorder and left the room.

The President struggled to shake off the bewildering terror of the nightmare. Yet it all seemed too real to be dream fantasy. He could smell his own sweat, feel the hurt as the straps chafed his skin, hear the walls echo with his cries of frustration. His head sagged to his chest and he began to sob uncontrollably as the recorded message droned over and over. When at last he sufficiently recovered, he raised his head as if lifting a ponderous weight and looked around.

He was seated in his White House study.

Secretary Oates took Dan Fawcett’s call on his private line. “What’s the situation over there?” he asked without wasting words.

“Critical,” Fawcett replied. “Armed guards everywhere. I haven’t seen this many troops since I was with the Fifth Marine Regiment in Korea.”

“And the President?”

“Spitting out directives like a Gatling gun. He won’t listen to advice from his aides any longer, myself included. He’s getting increasingly harder to reach. Two weeks ago, he’d give full attention to opposing viewpoints or objective comments. No more. You agree with him or you’re out the door. Megan Blair and I are the only ones still with access to his office, and my days are numbered. I’m bailing out before the roof caves in.”

“Stay put,” said Oates. “It’s best for all concerned if you and Oscar Lucas remain close to the President. You’re the only open line of communications any of us have into the White House.”

“Won’t work.”

“Why?”

“I told you, even if I stick around, I’ll be closed out. My name is rapidly climbing to the top of the President’s shit list.”

“Then get back in his good graces,” Oates ordered. “Crawl up his butt and support whatever he says. Play yes-man and relay up-to-the-minute reports on every course of action he takes.”

There was a long pause. “Okay, I’ll do my best to keep you informed.”

“And alert Oscar Lucas to stand by. We’re going to need him.”

“Can I ask what’s going on?”

“Not yet,” Oates replied tersely.

Fawcett didn’t press him. He switched tack. “You want to hear the President’s latest brainstorm?”

“Bad?”

“Very bad,” admitted Fawcett. “He’s talking about withdrawing our military forces from the NATO alliance.”

Oates clutched the phone until his knuckles turned ivory. “He’s got to be stopped,” he said grimly.

Fawcett’s voice sounded far away. “The President and I go back a long way together, but in the best interests of the country, I must agree.”

“Stay in touch.”

Oates put down the phone, turned in his desk chair and gazed out the window, lost in thought. The afternoon sky had turned an ominous gray, and a light rain began to fall on Washington’s streets, their slickened surfaces reflecting the federal buildings in eerie distortions.

In the end he would have to take over the reins of government, Oates thought bitterly. He was well aware that every President in the last thirty years had been vilified and debased by events beyond his control. Eisenhower was the last chief executive who left the White House as venerated as when he came in. No matter how saintly or intellectually brilliant the next President, he would be stoned by an unmovable bureaucracy and increasingly hostile news media; and Oates harbored no desire to be a target of the rock throwers.

He was pulled out of his reverie by the muted buzz of his intercom. “Mr. Brogan and another gentleman to see you.”

“Send them in,” Oates directed. He rose and came around his desk as Brogan entered. They shook hands briefly and Brogan introduced the man standing beside him as Dr. Raymond Edgely.

Oates correctly pegged Edgely as an academician. The old-fashioned crew cut and bow tie suggested someone who seldom strayed from a university campus. Edgely was slender, wore a scraggly barbed-wire beard, and his bristly dark eyebrows were untrimmed and brushed upward in a Mephistopheles set and blow.

“Dr. Edgely is the director of Fathom,” Brogan explained, “the Agency’s special study into mind-control techniques at Greeley University in Colorado.”

Oates gestured for them to sit on a sofa and took a chair across a marble coffee table. “I’ve just received a call from Dan Fawcett. The President intends to withdraw our troops from NATO.”

“Another piece of evidence to bolster our case,” said Brogan. “Only the Russians would profit from such a move.”

Oates turned to Edgely. “Has Martin explained our suspicions regarding the President’s behavior to you?”

“Yes, Mr. Brogan has filled me in.”

“And how does the situation strike you? Can the President be mentally forced to become an involuntary traitor?”

“I grant the President’s actions demonstrate a dramatic personality change, but unless we can put him through a series of tests, there is no way of being certain of brain alteration or exterior domination.”

“He will never consent to an examination,” said Brogan.

“That presents a problem,” Edgely said.

“Suppose you tell us, Doctor,” Oates asked, “how the President’s mind transfer was performed?”

“If that is indeed what we are faced with,” replied Edgely, “the first step is to isolate the subject in a womblike chamber for a given length of time, removed from all sensorial influences. During this sequence his brain patterns are studied, analyzed and deciphered into a language that can be programmed and translated by computer. The next step is to design an implant, in this instance a microchip, with the desired data and then insert it by psychosurgery into the subject’s brain.”

“You make it sound as elementary as a tonsillectomy,” said Oates.

Edgely laughed. “I’ve condensed and oversimplified, of course, but in reality the procedures are incredibly delicate and involved.”

“After the microchip is imbedded into the brain, what then?”

“I should have mentioned that a section of the implant is a tiny transmitter/receiver which operates off the electrical impulses of the brain and is capable of sending thought patterns and other bodily functions to a central computer and monitoring post located as far away as Hong Kong.”

“Or Moscow,” added Brogan.

“And not the Soviet embassy here in Washington, as you suggested earlier?” Oates asked, looking at Brogan.

“I think I can answer that,” Edgely volunteered. “The communication technology is certainly available to relay data from a subject via satellite to Russia, but if I were in Dr. Lugovoy’s shoes, I’d set up my monitoring station nearby so I could observe the results of the President’s actions at firsthand. This would also allow me a faster response time to redirect my command signals to his mind during unexpected political events.”

“Can Lugovoy lose control over the President?” asked Brogan.

“If the President ceases to think and act for himself, he breaks the ties to his normal world. Then he may tend to stray from Lugovoy’s instructions and carry them to extremes.”

“Is this why he’s instigated so many radical programs in such haste?”

“I can’t say,” Edgely answered. “For all I know he is responding precisely to Lugovoy’s commands. I do suspect, however, that it goes far deeper.”

“In what manner?”

“The reports supplied by Mr. Brogan’s operatives in Russia show that Lugovoy has attempted experiments with political prisoners, transferring the fluid from their hippocampuses — a structure in the brain’s limbic system that holds our memories — to those of other subjects.”

“A memory injection,” Oates murmured wonderingly. “So there really is a Dr. Frankenstein.”

“Memory transfer is a tricky business,” Edgely continued. “There is no predicting with any certainty the end results.”

“Do you think Lugovoy performed this experiment on the President?”

“I hate to say yes, but if he runs true to form, he might very well have programmed some poor Russian prisoner for months, even years, with thoughts promoting Soviet policy, and then transplanted the hippocampal fluid into the President’s brain as a backup to the implant.”

“Under the proper care,” Oates asked, “could the President return to normal?”

“You mean put his mind back as it was before?”

“Something like that.”

Edgely shook his head. “Any known treatment will not reverse the damage. The President will always be haunted by the memory of someone else.”

“Couldn’t you extract his hippocampal fluid as well?”

“I catch your meaning, but by removing the foreign thought patterns, we’d be erasing the President’s own memories.” Edgely paused. “No, I’m sorry to say, the President’s behavior patterns have been irrevocably altered.”

“Then he should be removed from office… permanently.”

“That would be my recommendation,” answered Edgely without hesitation.

Oates sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “Thank you, Doctor. You’ve reinforced our resolve.”

“From what I’ve heard, no one gets through the White House gates.”

“If the Russians could abduct him,” said Brogan, “I see no reason why we can’t do the same. But first we have to disconnect him from Lugovoy.”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“Please.”

“There is an excellent opportunity to turn this situation around to our advantage.”

“How?”

“Rather than cut off his brain signals, why not tune in on the frequency?”

“For what purpose?”

‘‘So my staff and I can feed the transmissions into our own monitoring equipment. If our computers can receive enough data, say within a forty-eight-hour period, we can take the place of the President’s brain.”

“A substitution to feed the Russians false information,” said Brogan, rising to Edgely’s inspiration.

“Exactly!” Edgely exclaimed. “Because they have every reason to believe the validity of the data they receive from the President, Soviet intelligence can be led down whichever garden path you choose.”

“I like the idea,” said Oates. “But the stickler is whether we can afford the forty-eight hours. There’s no telling what the President might attempt within that time frame.”

“The risk is worth it,” Brogan stated flatly.

There was a knock on the door and Oates’s secretary leaned her head into the room. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Secretary, but Mr. Brogan has an urgent call.”

Brogan got up quickly, lifted the phone on Oates’s desk and pressed the winking button. “Brogan.”

He stood there listening for close to a full minute without speaking. Then he hung up and faced Oates.

“Speaker of the House Alan Moran just turned up alive at our Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba,” he said slowly.

“Margolin?”

“No report.”

“Larimer?”

“Senator Larimer is dead.”

“Oh, good God!” Oates moaned. “That means Moran could be our next President. I can’t think of a more unscrupulous or ill-equipped man for the job!”

“A Fagin poised at the White House gate,” commented Brogan. “Not a pleasant thought.”

60

Pitt was certain he was dead. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be dead. And yet he saw no blinding light at the end of a tunnel, no faces of friends and relatives who died before him. He felt as though he were dozing in his own bed at home. And Loren was there, her hair cascading on the pillow, her body pressed against his, her arms encircling his neck, holding tightly, refusing to let him drift away. Her face seemed to glow, and her violet eyes looked straight into his. He wondered if she was dead too.

Suddenly she released her hold and began to blur, moving away, diminishing ever smaller until she vanished altogether. A dim light filtered through his closed eyelids and he heard voices in the distance. Slowly, with an effort as great as lifting a pair of hundred-pound weights, he opened his eyes. At first he thought he was gazing at a flat white surface. Then as his mind crept past the veil of unconsciousness he realized he really was gazing at a flat white surface.

It was a ceiling.

A strange sound said, “He’s coming around.”

“Takes more than three cracked ribs, a brain concussion and a gallon of seawater to do this character in.” There was no mistaking the laconic voice.

“My worst fears,” Pitt managed to mutter. “I’ve gone to hell and met the devil.”

“See how he talks about his best and only friend,” said Al Giordino to the doctor in naval uniform.

“He’s in good physical shape,” said the doctor. “He should mend pretty quickly.”

“Pardon the mundane question,” said Pitt, “but where am I?”

“Welcome to the U.S. Naval Hospital at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” the doctor answered. “You and Mr. Giordino were fished out of the water by one of our recovery craft.”

Pitt focused his eyes on Giordino. “Are you all right?”

“He has a bruise the size of a cantaloupe on his abdomen, but he’ll survive,” the doctor said, smiling. “By the way, I understand he saved your life.”

Pitt cleared the mist from his mind and tried to recall. “The steward from the Leonid Andreyev was playing baseball with my head.”

“Pounded you under the boat with an oar,” Giordino explained. “I slipped over the side, swam underwater until I grabbed your arm, dragged you to the surface. The steward would have beat on me too except for the timely arrival of a Navy helicopter whose paramedics jumped into the water and helped sling us on board.”

“And Loren?”

Giordino averted his gaze. “She’s listed as missing.”

“Missing, hell!” Pitt snarled. He grimaced from the sudden pain in his chest as he rose to his elbows. “We both know she was alive and sitting in the lifeboat.”

A solemn look clouded Giordino’s face. “Her name didn’t appear on a list of survivors given out by the ship’s captain.”

“A Bougainville ship!” Pitt blurted as his memory came flooding back. “The Oriental steward who tried to brain us pointed toward the—”

“Chalmette,” Giordino prompted.

“Yes, the Chalmette, and said it belonged to him. He also spoke my name.”

“Stewards are supposed to remember passengers’ names. He knew you as Charlie Gruber in cabin thirty-four.”

“No, he rightly accused me of meddling in Bougainville affairs, and his last words were ‘Bon voyage, Dirk Pitt.’ “

Giordino gave a puzzled shrug. “Beats hell out of me how he knew you. But why would a Bougainville man work as a steward on a Russian cruise ship?”

“I can’t begin to guess.”

“And lie about Loren’s rescue?”

Pitt merely gave an imperceptible shake of his head.

“Then she’s being held prisoner by the Bougainvilles,” said Giordino as if suddenly enlightened. “But for what reason?”

“You keep asking questions I can’t answer,” Pitt said irritably. “Where is the Chalmette now?”

“Headed toward Miami to land the survivors.”

“How long have I been unconscious?”

“About thirty-two hours,” replied the doctor.

“Still time,” said Pitt. “The Chalmette won’t reach the Florida coast for several hours yet.”

He raised himself to a sitting position and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The room began to seesaw back and forth.

The doctor moved forward and steadied him by both arms. “I hope you don’t think you’re rushing off somewhere.”

“I intend to be standing on the dock when the Chalmette arrives in Miami,” Pitt said implacably.

A stern medical-profession look grew on the doctor’s face. “You’re staying in this bed for the next four days. You can’t travel around with those fractured ribs, and we don’t know how serious your concussion is.”

“Sorry, Doc,” Giordino said, “but you’ve both been overruled.”

Pitt stared at him stonily. “Who’s to stop me?”

“Admiral Sandecker, for one. Secretary of State Doug Oates for another,” Giordino answered as de-tachedly as though he were reading aloud the stock market quotes for the day. “Orders came down for you to fly to Washington the minute you came around. We may be in big trouble. I have a hunch we dipped into the wrong cookie jar when we discovered Congressman Moran and Senator Larimer imprisoned on a Soviet vessel.”

“They can wait until I search the Chalmette for Loren.”

“My job. You go to the capital while I go to Miami and play customs inspector. It’s all been arranged.”

Pacified to a small degree, Pitt relaxed on the bed. “What about Moran?”

“He couldn’t wait to cut out,” Giordino said angrily. “He demanded the Navy drop everything and fly him home the minute he was brought ashore. I had a minor confrontation with him in the hospital corridor after his routine examination. Came within a millimeter of cramming his hook nose down his gullet. The bastard didn’t demonstrate the slightest concern about Loren, and he seemed downright delighted when I told him of Larimer’s death.”

“He has a talent for deserting those who help him,” Pitt said disgustedly.

An orderly rolled in a wheelchair and together with Giordino eased Pitt into it. A groan escaped his lips as a piercing pain ripped through his chest.

“You’re leaving against my express wishes,” said the doctor. “I want that understood. There is no guarantee you won’t have complications if you overtax yourself.”

“I release you from all responsibility, Doc,” Pitt said, smiling. “I won’t tell a soul I was your patient. Your medical reputation is secure.”

Giordino laid a pile of Navy-issue clothing and a small paper sack in Pitt’s lap. “Here’s some presentable clothes and the stuff from your pockets. You can dress on the plane to save time.”

Pitt opened the sack and fingered a vinyl pouch inside. Satisfied the contents were secure and dry, he looked up at Giordino and shook hands. “Good hunting, friend.”

Giordino patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll find her. You go to Washington and give ‘em hell.”

No one could have suffered from a Rip Van Winkle syndrome and awakened more surprised than Alan Moran. He remembered going to sleep on the presidential yacht almost two weeks earlier, and his next conscious sensation was being dragged into a limousine somewhere in the river country of South Carolina. The imprisonment and escape from the burning Russian cruise ship seemed a distorted blur. Only when he returned to Washington and found both Congress and the Supreme Court evicted from their hallowed halls did he come back on track and retrieve his mantle of political power.

With the government in emotional and political shambles, he saw his chance to fulfill his deep, unfathomable ambition to become President. Not having the popular support to take the office by election, he was determined now to grab it by default. With Margolin missing, Larimer out of the way, and the President laid open for impeachment, there was little to stop him.

Moran held court in the middle of Jackson Square across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House and answered questions fired by a battery of correspondents. He was the man of the hour and was enjoying every second of the attention.

“Can you tell us where you’ve been the last two weeks?” asked Ray Marsh of the New York Times.

“Be glad to,” Moran replied gracefully. “Senate Majority Leader Marcus Larimer and I went on a fishing holiday in the Caribbean, partly to try our luck at snagging a record marlin, mostly to discuss the issues facing our great nation.”

“Initial reports state that Senator Larimer died during the Leonid Andreyev tragedy.”

“I’m deeply saddened to say that is true,” Moran said, abruptly becoming solemn. “The senator and I were trolling only five or six miles away from the Russian cruise ship when we heard and observed an explosion that covered her in fire and smoke. We immediately ordered our skipper to change course for the disaster area. When we arrived, the Leonid Andreyev was ablaze from stem to stern. Hundreds of frightened passengers were tumbling into the sea, many with their clothes in flames.”

Moran paused for effect and then enunciated in a vivid descriptive tone. “I leaped into the water, followed by the senator, to help those who were badly injured or unable to swim. We struggled for what seemed like hours, keeping women and children afloat until we could lift them into our fishing boat. I lost track of Senator Larimer. When I looked for him, he was floating facedown, an apparent victim of a heart attack due to overexertion. You can quote me as saying he died a real hero.”

“How many people do you reckon you saved?” This from Joe Stark of the United Press.

“I lost count,” answered Moran, serenely pitching out the lies. “Our small vessel became dangerously overloaded with burned and half-drowned victims. So, rather than become the straw that might capsize it, so to speak, I remained in the water so one more pitiful creature could cheat death. Luckily for me, I was picked up by the Navy, which, I must add, performed magnificently.”

“Were you aware that Congresswoman Loren Smith was traveling on the Leonid Andreyev?” asked Marion Tournier of the Associated Press Radio Network.

“Not at the time,” replied Moran, changing back to his solemn demeanor again. “Regretfully, I’ve only just been informed that she’s reported as missing.”

Curtis Mayo signaled his cameramen and edged closer to Moran. “Congressman, what is your feeling regarding the President’s unprecedented closing of Congress?”

“Deeply mortified that such an arrogant deed could take place in our government. It’s obvious the President has taken leave of his senses. With one terrible blow, he has swept our nation from a democracy into a fascist state. I fully intend to see that he is removed from office — the sooner, the better.”

“How do you propose to do it?” Mayo pushed him. “Every time the members of the House convene to launch impeachment proceedings, the President sends in troops to disband them.”

“The story will be different this time,” Moran said confidently. “Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, members of Congress will hold a joint session in Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University. And in order to meet without interference or disruption by the President’s unauthorized and immoral use of the military, we intend to confront force with force. I have conferred with my House and Senate colleagues from the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia who have prevailed upon their governors to protect our constitutional right to assemble by providing troops from their National Guard units.”

“Will they have orders to shoot?” asked Mayo, smelling newsworthy blood.

“If attacked,” Moran replied coldly, “the answer is an absolute yes.”

“And so Civil War Two erupts,” said Oates wearily as he switched off the TV set and turned to face Emmett, Mercier and Brogan.

“Moran is as daft as the President,” Emmett said, shaking his head in disgust.

“I pity the American public for being forced to accept such miserable leadership material,” Mercier grumbled.

“How do you read the upcoming confrontation at Lisner Auditorium?” Oates asked Emmett.

“The special forces of Army and Marines patrolling Capitol Hill are highly trained professionals. They can be counted on to stand firm and not attempt anything stupid. The National Guard is the real danger. All it takes is one weekend warrior to panic and fire off a round. Then we’ll witness another Kent State bloodbath, except much worse. This time the Guard will have their fire returned by deadly marksmen.”

“The situation won’t be helped if a few congressmen fall in the crossfire,” added Mercier.

“The President has to be isolated. The timetable must be moved up,” said Oates.

Mercier looked unsold. “That means cutting back Dr. Edgely’s evaluation of the President’s brain signals.”

“Preventing wholesale slaughter must take priority over a plan to mislead the Russians,” said Oates.

Brogan gazed at the ceiling thoughtfully. “I think we might steal our chicken and pluck it too.”

Oates smiled. “I hear the gears meshing in your head, Martin. What wild Machiavellian scheme has the CIA got up its sleeve now?”

“A way to give Edgely an advantage,” answered Brogan with a foxlike grin. “A little something borrowed from The Twilight Zone.”

61

A limousine was waiting at Andrews Air Force Base when Pitt slowly eased his way down the boarding stairs from a Navy passenger jet. Admiral Sandecker was sitting in the car, hidden by the tinted windows.

He opened the door and helped Pitt inside. “How was the flight?”

“Mercifully, it was smooth.”

“Do you have any luggage?”

“I’m wearing it,” said Pitt. He winced and clenched his teeth as he slipped into the seat beside the admiral.

“You in much pain?”

“A little stiff. They don’t tape cracked ribs like they did in the old days. Just let them heal on their own.”

“Sorry I insisted on your return in such haste, but things in Washington are boiling up a storm, and Doug Oates is hoping you possess information that might clear up a few entanglements.”

“I understand,” Pitt said. “Has there been any news of Loren?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid.”

“She’s alive,” said Pitt, staring out the window.

“I don’t doubt it,” Sandecker concurred. “Probably an oversight her name isn’t on the survivor list. Maybe she requested anonymity to avoid the press.”

“Loren had no reason to hide.”

“She’ll turn up,” Sandecker said. “Now, suppose you tell me how you managed to be present at the worst maritime tragedy in fifty years.”

Pitt marveled at how the admiral could twist a conversation in another direction with the abruptness of leaping from a sauna into the snow.

“In the brief time we had together on the Leonid Andreyev,” Pitt began, “Loren told me she was strolling on the deck on the first night of the cruise when the lights around the exterior of the ship went out, followed by the landing of a helicopter. Three passengers were taken off, two of them roughly handled. Loren thought she recognized one of them in the dim light as Alan Moran. Not certain whether her eyes were playing tricks, she called her aide Sally Lindemann over ship-to-shore phone and asked her to locate Moran’s whereabouts. Sally turned up false trails covered over by vague reports and no Moran. She also discovered he and Marcus Larimer were supposed to be together. She then related the negative results to Loren, who told her to contact me. But the call was cut off. The Russians had monitored her calls and learned she’d accidentally stumbled into the middle of a delicate operation.”

“So they made her a prisoner along with her congressional pals, who were on a one-way trip to Moscow.”

“Except that Loren was more risk than asset. She was to be conveniently lost overboard.”

“And after Lindemann contacted you?” Sandecker probed.

“Al Giordino and I drew up a plan and flew south, catching up with the ship in San Salvador and boarding there.”

“Over two hundred people died on the Leonid Andreyev. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Yes,” Pitt said meditatively. “It was a near thing.”

He went quiet, his mind’s eye seeing only a face the face of the steward who stood in the lifeboat leering down at him with the look of a man who enjoyed his work: a murderer without a shred of remorse.

“In case you’re interested,” said Sandecker, breaking the spell, “we’re going direct to a meeting with Secretary Oates at the State Department.”

“Make a detour by the Washington Post,” Pitt said abruptly.

Sandecker gave him a negative look. “We can’t spare the time to buy a newspaper.”

“If Oates wants to hear what I’ve got, he’ll damn well have to wait.”

Sandecker made a sour expression and gave in. “Ten minutes is all you get. I’ll call Oates and say your plane was delayed.”

Pitt had met the Secretary of State previously, during the North American Treaty affair. The neatly trimmed hair was slate-colored, and the brown eyes moved with practiced ease as they read Pitt. Oates wore a five-hundred-dollar gray tailored suit and highly polished black custom shoes. There was a no-nonsense aggressiveness about him, and he moved well, almost like a track and field athlete.

“Mr. Pitt, how nice to see you again.”

“Good to see you, Mr. Secretary.”

Oates wrung Pitt’s hand, then turned to the other men in the conference room and went through the introductions. The inner sanctum had turned out. Brogan of the CIA, Emmett of the FBI, National Security’s Alan Mercier, whom Pitt also knew, and Dan Fawcett representing the White House. Admiral Sandecker remained at Pitt’s side, keeping a wary eye on his friend.

“Please sit down,” Oates said, waving them all to a chair.

Sam Emmett turned toward Pitt and regarded him with interest, noting the drawn lines in his face. “I’ve taken the liberty of pulling your packet, Mr. Pitt, and I must confess your service with the government reads like a novel.” He paused to scan the dossier. “Directly responsible for saving innumerable lives during the Vixen operation. Instrumental in obtaining the Canadian merger treaty. Heading the project to raise the Titanic, with subsequent discovery of a rare element for the Sicilian project. You have an uncanny knack for getting around.”

“I believe the word is ‘ubiquitous,’ “ Oates injected.

“You were in the Air Force before joining NUMA,” Emmett continued. “Rank of major. Excellent record in Vietnam.” He hesitated, a strange inquisitive look growing on his face. “I see here you received a commendation for destroying one of our own aircraft.”

“Perhaps I should explain that,” Sandecker said, “since I was on the aircraft Dirk shot down.”

“I realize we’re pressed for time, but I’d be interested to hear that tale,” said Oates.

Sandecker nodded agreeably. “My staff and I were flying on a twin turboprop transport from Saigon to a small coastal port north of Da Nang. Unknown to us, the field we were supposed to land on was overrun by North Vietnamese regulars. Our radio malfunctioned and my pilot was unable to receive the warning. Dirk was flying nearby, returning to his base from a bombing mission. The local commander directed him to intercept and alert us by whatever means available.” Sandecker looked over at Pitt and smiled. “I have to say he tried everything short of a neon sign. He played charades from his cockpit, fired several bursts from his guns across our nose, but nothing penetrated our thick skulls. When we were on our final landing approach, coming in from the sea toward the airstrip, in what has to be a rare exhibition of precision aerial marksmanship, he shot out both our engines, forcing my pilot to ditch our plane in the water only one mile from shore. Dirk then flew cover, strafing enemy boats putting out from the beach, until everyone was taken aboard a Navy patrol vessel. After learning that he saved me from certain imprisonment and possible death, we became good friends. Several years later, when President Ford asked me to launch NUMA, I persuaded Dirk to join me.”

Oates looked at Pitt through bemused eyes. “You lead an interesting life. I envy you.”

Before Pitt could reply, Alan Mercier said, “I’m sure Mr. Pitt is curious why we asked him here.”

“I’m well aware of the reason,” Pitt said.

He looked from man to man. They all looked like they hadn’t slept in a month. At last he addressed himself directly to Oates. “I know who was responsible for the theft and subsequent spill of Nerve Agent S into the Gulf of Alaska.” He spoke slowly and distinctly. “I know who committed nearly thirty murders while hijacking the presidential yacht and its passengers. I know the identities of those passengers and why they were abducted. And lastly, I know who sabotaged the Leonid Andreyev, killing two hundred men, women and children. There is no speculation or guesswork on my part. The facts and evidence are rock solid.”

The room took on an almost deathly stillness. No one made even the slightest attempt to speak. Pitt’s statement had stunned them to the soles of their feet. Emmett had a distraught expression on his face. Fawcett clasped his hands to conceal his nervousness. Oates appeared dazed.

Brogan was the first to question Pitt. “I must assume, Mr. Pitt, you’re alluding to the Russians?”

“No, sir, I am not.”

“No chance you’re mistaken?” asked Mercier.

“None.”

“If not the Russians,” asked Emmett in a cautious voice, “then who?”

“The head of the Bougainville Maritime empire, Min Koryo, and her grandson, Lee Tong.”

“I happen to know Lee Tong Bougainville personally,” said Emmett. “He is a respected business executive who donates heavily to political campaigns.”

“So does the Mafia and every charlatan who’s out to milk the government money machine,” said Pitt icily. He laid a photograph on the table. “I borrowed this from the morgue file of the Washington Post. Do you recognize this man, Mr. Emmett, the one coming through the door in the picture?”

Emmett picked up the photograph and examined it. “Lee Tong Bougainville,” he said. “Not a good likeness, but one of the few photos I’ve ever seen of him. He avoids publicity like herpes. You’re making a grave error, Mr. Pitt, in accusing him of any crime.”

“No error,” Pitt said firmly. “This man tried to kill me. I have reason to believe he is accountable for the explosion that burned and sank the Leonid Andreyev, and the kidnapping of Congresswoman Loren Smith.”

“Congresswoman Smith’s kidnapping is pure conjecture on your part.”

“Didn’t Congressman Moran explain what occurred on board the ship?” Pitt asked.

“He refuses to be questioned by us,” Mercier answered. “All we know is what he told the press.”

Emmett was becoming angry. He saw Pitt’s revelations as an indictment of FBI fumbling. He leaned across the table with fire in his eyes. “Do you honestly expect us to believe your ridiculous fairy tales?” he demanded in a cracking voice.

“I don’t much care what you believe,” Pitt replied, pinning the FBI director with his stare.

“Can you say how you collared the Bougainvilles?” asked Oates.

“My involvement stems from the death of a friend by Nerve Agent S. I began a hunt for the responsible parties, I admit, purely for revenge. As my investigations gradually centered on Bougainville Maritime, other avenues of their illicit organization suddenly unfolded.”

“And you can prove your accusations?”

“Of course,” Pitt answered. “Computer data describing their hijacking activities, drug business and smuggling operations is in a safe at NUMA.”

Brogan held up a hand. “Wait one moment. You stated the Bougainvilles were also behind the hijacking of the Eagle?”

“I did.”

“And you know who was abducted?”

“I do.”

“Not possible,” Brogan stated flatly.

“Shall I name names, gentlemen?” said Pitt. “Let’s begin with the President, then Vice President Margolin, Senator Larimer and House Speaker Moran. I was with Larimer when he died. Margolin is still alive and held somewhere by the Bougainvilles. Moran is now here in Washington, no doubt conspiring to become the next messiah. The President sits in the White House immune to the political disaster he’s causing, while his brain is wired to the apron strings of a Soviet psychologist whose name is Dr. Aleksei Lugovoy.”

If Oates and the others sat stunned before, they were absolutely petrified now. Brogan looked as if he’d just consumed a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

“You couldn’t know all that!” he gasped.

“Quite obviously, I do,” said Pitt calmly.

“My God, how?” demanded Oates.

“A few hours prior to the holocaust on the Leonid Andreyev, I killed a KGB agent by the name of Paul Suvorov. He was carrying a notebook, which I borrowed. The pages describe his movements after the President was abducted from the Eagle.”

Pitt took the tobacco pouch from under his shirt, opened it, and casually tossed the notebook on the table.

It lay there for several moments until Oates finally reached over and pulled it toward him slowly, as if it might bite his hand. Then he thumbed through the pages.

“That’s odd,” he said after a lapse. “The writing is in English. I would have expected some sort of Russian worded code.”

“Not so strange,” said Brogan. “A good operative will write in the language of the country he’s assigned to. What is unusual is that this Suvorov took notes at all. I can only assume he was keeping an eye on Lugovoy, and the mind-control project was too technical for him to commit to memory, so he recorded his observations.”

“Mr. Pitt,” Fawcett demanded. “Do you have enough evidence for the Justice Department to indict Min Koryo Bougainville?”

“Indict yes, convict no,” Pitt answered. “The government will never put an eighty-six-year-old woman as rich and powerful as Min Koryo behind bars. And if she thought her chances were on the down side, she’d skip the country and move her operations elsewhere.”

“Considering her crimes,” Fawcett mused, “extradition shouldn’t be too tough to negotiate.”

“Min Koryo has strong ties with the North Koreans,” said Pitt. “She goes there and you’ll never see her stand trial.”

Emmett considered that and said stonily, “I think we can take over at this point.” Then he turned to Sandecker as if dismissing Pitt. “Admiral, can you arrange to have Mr. Pitt available for further questioning, and supply us with the computer data he’s accumulated on the Bougainvilles?”

“You can bank on full cooperation from NUMA,” Sandecker said. Then he added caustically, “Always glad to help the FBI off a reef.”

“That’s settled,” said Oates, stepping in as referee. “Mr. Pitt, do you have any idea where they might be holding Vice President Margolin?”

“No, sir. I don’t think Suvorov did either. According to his notes, after he escaped from Lugovoy’s laboratory, he flew over the area in a helicopter but failed to pinpoint the location or building. The only reference he mentions is a river south of Charleston, South Carolina.”

Oates looked from Emmett to Brogan to Mercier. “Well, gentlemen, we have a starting point.”

“I think we owe a round of thanks to Mr. Pitt,” said Fawcett.

“Yes, indeed,” said Mercier. “You’ve been most helpful.”

Christ! Pitt thought to himself. They’re beginning to sound like the Chamber of Commerce expressing their gratitude to a street cleaner who followed a parade.

“That’s all there is?” he asked.

“For the moment,” replied Oates.

“What about Loren Smith and Vince Margolin?”

“We’ll see to their safety,” said Emmett coldly.

Pitt awkwardly struggled to his feet. Sandecker came over and took his arm. Then Pitt placed his hands on the table and leaned toward Emmett, his stare enough to wither cactus.

“You better,” he said with a voice like steel. “You damned well better.”

62

As the Chalmette steamed toward Florida, communications became hectic. Frantic inquiries flooded the ship’s radio room, and the Koreans found it impossible to comply. They finally gave up and supplied only the names of the survivors on board. All entreaties by the news media demanding detailed information on the Leonid Andreyev’s sinking went unanswered.

Friends and relatives of the passengers, frantic with anxiety, began collecting at the Russian cruise line offices. Here and there around the country flags were flown at half-mast. The tragedy was a subject of conversation in every home. Newspapers and television networks temporarily swept the President’s closing of Congress out of the limelight and devoted special editions and newscasts to covering the disaster.

The Navy began airlifting the people whom their rescue operation had pulled from the water, flying them to naval air stations and hospitals nearest their homes. These were the first to be interviewed, and their conflicting stories blamed the explosion on everything from a floating mine of World War Two, to a cargo of weapons and munitions being smuggled by the Russians into Central America.

The Soviet diplomatic missions across the United States reacted badly by accusing the U.S. Navy of carelessly launching a missile at the Leonid Andreyev: a charge that had good play in the Eastern bloc countries but was generally shrugged off elsewhere as a crude propaganda ploy.

The excitement rose to a crescendo over a human interest story not seen since the sinking of the Andrea Doria in 1956. The continued silence from the Chalmette infuriated the reporters and correspondents. There was a mad rush to charter boats, airplanes and helicopters to meet the ship as she neared the coast. Fueled by the Korean captain’s silence, speculation ran rampant as the tension built. Investigations into the cause were being demanded by every politician who could contrive an interview.

The Chalmette remained obstinate to the end. As she entered the main channel, she was surrounded by a wolf pack of buzzing aircraft and circling pleasure yachts and fishing boats crawling with reporters blasting questions through bullhorns. To their utter frustration, the Korean seamen simply waved and shouted back in their native tongue.

Slowly approaching the docking terminal at Dodge Island in the Port of Miami, the Chalmette was greeted by a massive crowd of over a hundred thousand people surging against a police cordon blocking the entrance to the pier. A hundred video and film cameras recorded the scene as the giant container ship’s mooring lines were dropped over rusting bollards, gangways were rolled against the hull, and the survivors stood at the railings, astounded at the turnout.

Some appeared overjoyed to see dry land once again, others displayed solemn grief for husbands or wives, sons or daughters, they would never see again. A great hush suddenly fell on the mass of spectators. It was later described by an anchorman on the evening TV news as “the silence one experiences at the lowering of a coffin into the ground.”

Unnoticed in the drama, a host of FBI agents dressed in the uniforms of immigration officials and customs inspectors swarmed aboard the ship, confirming the identities of the surviving passengers and crewmen of the Leonid Andreyev, interrogating each on the whereabouts of Congresswoman Smith, and searching every foot of the ship for any sign of her.

Al Giordino questioned the people whose faces he recalled seeing in the lifeboat. None of them could remember what happened to Loren or the Oriental steward after climbing aboard the Chalmette. One woman thought she saw them led away by the ship’s captain, but she couldn’t be sure. To many of those who had narrowly escaped death, their minds conveniently blanked out much of the catastrophe.

The captain and his crew claimed to know nothing. Photos of Loren provoked no recognition. Interpreters interrogated them in Korean, but their stories were the same. They never saw her. Six hours of in-depth search turned up nothing. At last the reporters were allowed to scramble on board. The crew were acknowledged heroes of the sea. The image harvested by Bougainville Maritime and their courageous employees, who braved a sea of blazing oil to save four hundred souls, was a public relations windfall, and Min Koryo made the most of it.

It was dark and raining when Giordino wearily made his way across the now emptied dock and entered the customs office of the terminal. He sat at a desk for a long time staring out into the rain-soaked murk, his dark eyes mere shadows on his face.

He turned and looked at the telephone as though it was the enemy. Hyping his courage by a drink of brandy from a half-pint bottle in his coat pocket and lighting a cigar he had stolen from Admiral Sandecker, he dialed a number and let it ring, almost hoping no one would answer. Then a voice came on.

Giordino moistened his lips with his tongue and said, “Forgive me, Dirk. We were too late. She was gone.”

The helicopter came in from the south and flashed on its landing lights. The pilot settled his craft into position, and then lowered it onto the roof of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. The side door dropped open and Lee Tong stepped out. He swiftly walked over to a privately guarded entrance and took an elevator down to his grandmother’s living quarters.

He bent down and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “How was your day, aunumi?”

“Disastrous,” she said tiredly. “Someone is sabotaging our bank records, shipping transactions, every piece of business that goes through a computer. What was once a study in efficient management procedures is now a mess.”

Lee Tong’s eyes narrowed. “Who can be doing it?”

“Every trail leads to NUMA.”

“Dirk Pitt.”

“He’s the prime suspect.”

“No more,” said Lee Tong reassuringly. “Pitt is dead.”

She looked up, her aged eyes questioning. “You know that for a fact?”

He nodded. “Pitt was on board the Leonid Andreyev. An opportune stroke of luck. I watched him die.”

“Your Caribbean mission was only half favorable. Moran lives.”

“Yes, but Pitt is out of our hair and the Leonid Andreyev evens the score for the Venice and the gold.”

Min Koryo suddenly lashed out at him. “That slimy scum Antonov tricked us out of one billion dollars in gold and cost us a good ship and crew, and you say the score is even?”

Lee Tong had never seen his grandmother so furious. “I’m enraged too, aunumi, but we’re hardly in a position to declare war on the Soviet Union.”

She leaned forward, her hands clasped so tightly around the armrests of her wheelchair, the knuckles showed through the delicate skin. “The Russians don’t know what it’s like to have terrorists striking at their throats. I want you to mount bombing attacks against their merchant fleet, especially their oil tankers.”

Lee Tong put his arm around her shoulder as he would a hurt child. “The Hebrew eye-for-an-eye proverb may satisfy the vindictive soul, but it never adds to the bank account. Do not blind yourself with anger.”

“What do you expect?” she snapped. “Antonov has the President and the gold where his Navy can salvage it. We allowed Lugovoy and his staff to leave with the President. Years of planning and millions of dollars wasted, and for what?”

“We have not lost our bargaining power,” said Lee Tong. “Vice President Margolin is still secure at the laboratory. And we have an unexpected bonus in Congresswoman Loren Smith.”

“You abducted her?” she asked in surprise.

“She was also on board the cruise ship. After the sinking, I arranged to have her flown off the Chalmette to the laboratory.”

“She might prove useful,” Min Koryo conceded.

“Don’t be disheartened, aunumi,” said Lee Tong. “We are still in the game. Antonov and his KGB bedfellow Polevoi badly underestimated the Americans’ pathological devotion to individual rights. Instructing the President to close Congress to increase his powers was a stupid blunder. He will be impeached and thrown out of Washington within the week.”

“Not so long as he has the backing of the Pentagon.”

Lee Tong inserted a cigarette in the long silver holder. “The Joint Chiefs are sitting on the fence. They can’t keep the House from meeting forever. Once they’ve voted for impeachment, the generals and admirals won’t waste any time in swinging their support to Congress and the new chief executive.”

“Which will be Alan Moran,” Min Koryo said, as if she had a bad taste in her mouth.

“Unless we release Vincent Margolin.”

“And cut our own throat. We’d be better off making him disappear for good or arrange to have his body found floating in the Potomac River.”

“Listen, aunumi,” said Lee Tong, his black eyes glinting. “We have two options. One, the laboratory is in perfect working order. Lugovoy’s data is still in the computer disks. His mind-control techniques are ours for the taking. We can hire other scientists to program Margolin’s brain. This time it will not be the Russians who control the White House, but Bougainville Maritime.”

“But if Moran is sworn in as President before the brain-control transfer is accomplished, Margolin will be of no use to us.”

“Option two,” said Lee Tong. “Strike a deal with Moran to eliminate Margolin and pave his way to the White House.”

“Can he be bought?”

“Moran is a shrewd manipulator. His political power base is mortared with underhanded financial dealings. Believe me, aunumi, Alan Moran will pay any price for the Presidency.”

Min Koryo looked at her grandson with great respect. He possessed an almost mystical grasp of the abstract. She smiled faintly. Nothing excited her merchant blood more than reversing a failure into a success. “Strike your bargain,” she said.

“I’m happy you agree.”

“You must move the laboratory facility to a safe place,” she said, her mind beginning to shift gears. “At least until we know where we stand. Government investigators will soon fit the pieces together and concentrate their search on the Eastern Seaboard.”

“My thoughts also,” said Lee Tong. “I took the liberty of ordering one of our tugs to move it out of South Carolina waters to our private receiving dock.”

Min Koryo nodded. “An excellent choice.”

“And a practical one,” he replied.

“How do we handle the congresswoman?” Min Koryo asked.

“If she talks to the press she might bring up a number of embarrassing questions for Moran to answer about his presence on board the Leonid Andreyev. He’d be smart to pay for her silence also.”

“Yes, he lied himself into a hole on that one.”

“Or we can run her through the mind-control experiment and send her back to Washington. A servant in Congress could prove a great asset.”

“But if Moran included her in the deal?”

“Then we sink the laboratory along with Margolin and Loren Smith in a hundred fathoms of water.”

Unknown to Lee Tong and Min Koryo, their conversation was transmitted to the roof of a nearby apartment building where a secondary reception dish relayed the radio frequency signals to a voice-activated tape recorder in a dusty, vacant office several blocks away on Hudson Street.

The turn-of-the-century brick building was due to be demolished, and although most of the offices were empty, a few tenants were taking their sweet time about relocating.

Sal Casio had the tenth floor all to himself. He squatted in this particular site because the janitorial crew never bothered to step off the elevator, and the window had a direct line of sight to the secondary receiver. A cot, a sleeping bag and a small electric burner were all he needed to get by, and except for the receiver/recorder, his only other piece of furniture was an old faded and torn lobby chair that he’d salvaged out of a back-alley trash bin.

He turned the lock with his master key and entered, carrying a paper sack containing a corned beef sandwich and three bottles of Herman Joseph beer. The office was hot and stuffy, so he opened a window and stared at the lights across the river in New Jersey.

Casio performed the tedious job of surveillance automatically, welcoming the isolation that gave him a chance to let his mind run loose. He recalled the happy times of his marriage, the growing-up years with his daughter, and he began to feel mellowed. His long quest for retribution had finally threaded the needle and was drawing to a close. All that was left, he mused, was to write the Bougainville epilogue.

He looked down at the recorder while taking a bite out of the sandwich and noted the tape had rolled during his trip to the delicatessen. Morning would be soon enough to rewind and listen to it, he decided. Also, if he was playing back the recording when voices activated the system again, the previous conversation would be erased.

Casio had no way of guessing the critical content on the tape. The decision to wait was dictated by routine procedure, but the delay was to prove terribly costly.

“May I talk to you, General?”

About to leave for the day, Metcalf was in the act of snapping closed his briefcase. His eyes narrowed in apprehension at recognizing Alan Mercier, who was standing in the doorway.

“Of course, please come in and sit down.”

The President’s National Security Adviser moved toward the desk but remained standing. “I have some news you aren’t going to like.”

Metcalf sighed. “Bad news seems to be the order of the day lately. What is it?”

Mercier handed him an unmarked binder holding several sheets of typewritten paper and spoke in a soft, hurried voice. “Orders direct from the President. All American forces in Europe must be pulled out by Christmas. He’s given you twenty days to draw up a plan for total withdrawal from NATO.”

Metcalf slumped into his chair like a man struck with a hammer. “It’s not possible!” he mumbled. “I can’t believe the President would issue such orders!”

“I was as shocked as you are when he dropped the bomb on me,” said Mercier. “Oates and I tried to reason with him, but it was useless. He’s demanding everything be removed — Pershing and cruise missiles, all equipment, supply depots, our whole organization.”

Metcalf was bewildered. “But what about our Western alliances?”

Mercier made a helpless gesture with his hands. “His outlook, one I’ve never heard him voice before, is to let Europe police Europe.”

“But good God!” Metcalf snapped in sudden anger. “He’s handing the entire continent to the Russians on a gold tray.”

“I won’t argue with you.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll comply.”

“What will you do?”

“Go direct to the White House and resign,” Metcalf said adamantly.

“Before you act hastily, I suggest you meet with Sam Emmett.”

“Why?”

“There is something you should know,” Mercier said in a low tone, “and Sam is in a better position to explain it than me.”

63

The President was sitting at a writing table in his pajamas and bathrobe when Fawcett walked into the bedroom.

“Well, did you speak with Moran?”

Fawcett’s face was grim. “He refused to listen to any of your proposals.”

“Is that it?”

“He said you were finished as President, and nothing you could say was of any consequence. Then he threw in a few insults.”

“I want to hear them,” the President demanded sharply.

Fawcett sighed uncomfortably. “He said your behavior was that of a madman and that you belonged in the psycho ward. He compared you with Benedict Arnold and claimed he would see your administration wiped from the history books. After he ran through several more irrelevant slurs, he suggested you do the country a great service by committing suicide, thereby saving the taxpayers a long-drawn-out investigation and expensive trial.”

The President’s face became a mask of rage. “That sniveling little bastard thinks he’s going to put me in a courtroom?”

“It’s no secret, Moran is pulling out all stops to take your place.”

“His feet are too small to fill my shoes,” the President said through tight lips. “And his head is too big to fit the job.”

“To hear him tell it, his right hand is already raised to take the oath of office,” Fawcett said. “The proposed impeachment proceeding is only the first step in a blueprint for a transition from you to him.”

“Alan Moran will never occupy the White House,” the President said, his voice flat and hard.

“No congressional session, no impeachment,” said Fawcett. “But you can’t keep them corralled indefinitely.”

“They can’t meet until I give the word.”

“What about tomorrow morning at Lisner Auditorium?”

“The troops will break that up in short order.”

“Suppose the Virginia and Maryland National Guardsmen stand their ground?”

“For how long against veteran soldiers and Marines?”

“Long enough for a great many to die,” said Fawcett.

“So what?” the President scoffed coldly. “The longer I keep Congress in disarray, the more I can accomplish. A few deaths are a small price to pay.”

Fawcett looked at him uneasily. This was not the same man who solemnly swore during his campaign for the Presidency that no American boy would be ordered to fight and die under his administration. It was all he could do to act out his role of friend and adviser. After a moment he shook his head. “I hope you’re not being overly destructive.”

“Getting cold feet, Dan?”

Fawcett felt trapped in a corner, but before he could reply Lucas entered the room carrying a tray with cups and a teapot.

“Anyone care for some herbal tea?” he asked.

The President nodded. “Thank you, Oscar. That was very thoughtful of you.”

“Dan?”

“Thanks, I could use some.”

Lucas poured and passed out the cups, keeping one for himself. Fawcett drained his almost immediately.

“Could be warmer,” he complained.

“Sorry,” said Lucas. “It cooled on the way up from the kitchen.”

“Tastes fine to me,” the President said, between sips. “I don’t care for liquid so hot it burns your tongue.” He paused and set the cup on the writing desk. “Now then, where were we?”

“Discussing your new policies,” Fawcett said, deftly sidestepping out of the corner. “Western Europe is in an uproar over your decision to withdraw American forces from NATO. The joke circulating around Embassy Row is that Antonov is planning a coming-out party at the Savoy Hotel in London.”

“I don’t appreciate the humor,” the President said coldly. “President Antonov has given me his personal assurances that he will stay in his own yard.”

“I seem to remember Hitler telling Neville Chamberlain the same thing.”

The President looked as if he was going to make an angry retort, but suddenly he yawned and shook his head, fighting off a creeping drowsiness. “No matter what anyone thinks,” he said slowly, “I’ve diffused the nuclear threat and that’s all that matters.”

Fawcett took the cue and yawned contagiously. “If you don’t need me any more tonight, Mr. President, I think I’ll head for home and a soft bed.”

“Same here,” said Lucas. “My wife and kids are beginning to wonder if I still exist.”

“Of course. I’m sorry for keeping you so late.” The President moved over to the bed, kicked off his slippers and removed his robe. “Turn on the TV, will you, Oscar? I’d like to catch a few minutes of the twenty-four-hour cable news.” Then he turned to Fawcett. “Dan, first thing in the morning, schedule a meeting with General Metcalf. I want him to brief me on his troop movements.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Fawcett assured him. “Good night.”

In the elevator going down to the first floor Fawcett looked at his watch. “Two hours should do it.”

“He’ll sleep like the dead and wake up sicker than a dog,” said Lucas.

“By the way, how did you manage it? I didn’t see you slip anything into his tea, and yet you poured all three cups from the same pot.”

“An old magician’s trick,” Lucas said, laughing. “The teapot had two interior compartments.”

The elevator doors opened and they met Emmett, who was standing off to one side. “Any problems?” he asked.

Fawcett shook his head. “As smooth as glass. The President went down like a baby.”

Lucas looked at him, his eyes cautious. “Now comes the hard part — fooling the Russians.”

“He’s sleeping unusually soundly tonight,” said Lugovoy.

The monitoring psychologist who drew the early-morning shift nodded. “A good sign. Less chance for Comrade Belkaya to penetrate the President’s dreams.”

Lugovoy studied the display screen that recorded the President’s body functions. “Temperature up one degree. Congestion forming in the nasal passages. Appears as though our subject is coming down with either a summer cold or the flu.”

“Fascinating, we know he’s been attacked by a virus before he feels it.”

“I don’t think it’s serious,” Lugovoy said. “But you better keep a tight watch in case it develops into something that could jeopardize the project—”

Abruptly the green data filling the dozen screens encompassing the console faded into distorted lines and vanished into blackness.

The monitoring psychologist tensed. “What in hell—”

Then, as quickly as the display data were wiped clean, they returned in bright, clear readings. Lugovoy quickly checked the circuit warning lights. They all read normal.

“What do you suppose that was?”

Lugovoy looked thoughtful. “Possibly a temporary failure in the implant transmitter.”

“No indication of a malfunction.”

“An electrical interference, perhaps?”

“Of course. An atmospheric disturbance of some kind. That would explain it. The symptoms match. What else could it be?”

Lugovoy passed a weary hand across his face and stared at the monitors. “Nothing,” he said somberly. “Nothing of any concern.”

General Metcalf sat in his military residence and swirled the brandy around in his glass as he closed the cover of the report in his lap. He looked up sadly and stared at Emmett, who was sitting across the room.

“A tragic crime,” he said slowly. “The President had every chance for achieving greatness. No finer man ever sat in the White House.”

“The facts are all there,” said Emmett, gesturing at the report. “Thanks to the Russians, he’s mentally unfit to continue in office.”

“I must agree, but it’s no easy thing. He and I have been friends for nearly forty years.”

“Will you call off the troops and allow Congress to meet at Lisner Auditorium tomorrow?” Emmett pressed.

Metcalf sipped the brandy and gave a weary nod to his head. “I’ll issue orders for their withdrawal first thing in the morning. You can inform the House and Senate leaders they can hold session in the Capitol building.”

“Can I ask a favor?”

“Of course.”

“Is it possible to remove the Marine guard from around the White House by midnight?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Metcalf. “Any particular reason?”

“A deception, General,” Emmett replied. “One you will find most intriguing.”

64

Sandecker stood in the chart room of NUMA and peered through a magnification enhancer at an aerial photo of Johns Island, South Carolina. He straightened and looked at Giordino and Pitt, who were standing on the opposite side of the table. “Beats me,” he said after a short silence. “If Suvorov pinpointed his landmarks correctly, I can’t understand why he didn’t find Bougainville’s lab facility from a helicopter.”

Pitt consulted the Soviet agent’s notebook. “He used an old abandoned gas station for his base point,” he said, pointing to a tiny structure on the photograph, “which can be distinguished here.”

“Emmett or Brogan know you made a copy before we left Guantanamo Bay?” asked Giordino, nodding toward the notebook.

Pitt smiled. “What do you think?”

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“If Suvorov escaped the lab at night,” said Sandecker, “it’s conceivable he got his bearings crossed.”

“A good undercover operative is a trained observer,” Pitt explained. “He was precise in his description of landmarks. I doubt he lost his sense of direction.”

“Emmett has two hundred agents crawling over the area,” Sandecker said. “As of fifteen minutes ago, they came up empty-handed.”

“Then where?” Giordino asked in a general sense. “No structure the size Suvorov recorded shows on the aerial survey. A few old houseboats, some scattered small homes, a couple of decrepit sheds, nothing on the order of a warehouse.”

“An underground facility?” Sandecker speculated.

Giordino considered the point. “Suvorov did say he took the elevator up to break out.”

“On the other hand, he mentions walking down a ramp to a gravel road.”

“A ramp might suggest a boat,” Giordino ventured.

Sandecker looked doubtful. “No good. The only water near the spot where Suvorov puts the lab is a creek with a depth of no more than two or three feet. Far too shallow to float a vessel large enough to require an elevator.”

“There is another possibility,” said Pitt.

“Which is?”

“A barge.”

Giordino looked across the table at Sandecker. “I think Dirk may have something.”

Pitt stepped over to a telephone, dialed a number and switched the call to a speaker.

“Data Department,” came a groggy voice.

“Yaeger, you awake?”

“Oh, God, it’s you, Pitt. Why do you always have to call after midnight?”

“Listen, I need information on a particular type of vessel. Can your computers come up with a projection of its class if I supply the dimensions?”

“Is this a game?”

“Believe you me, this is no game,” Sandecker growled.

“Admiral!” Yaeger muttered, coming alert. “I’ll get right on it. What are your dimensions?”

Pitt thumbed to the correct page in the notebook and read them off into the speaker phone. “A hundred sixty-eight feet in length at inside perpendiculars by thirty-three feet in the beam. The approximate height is ten feet.”

“Not much to go on,” Yaeger grumbled.

“Try,” Sandecker replied sternly.

“Hold on. I’m moving to the keyboard.”

Giordino smiled at the admiral. “Care to make a wager?”

“Name it.”

“A bottle of Chivas Regal against a box of your cigars Dirk’s right.”

“No bet,” said Sandecker. “My specially rolled cigars cost far more than a bottle of scotch.”

Yaeger could be heard clearing his throat. “Here it is.” There was a slight pause. “Sorry, not enough data. Those figures are a rough match for any one of a hundred different craft.”

Pitt thought a moment. “Suppose the height was the same from bow to stern.”

“You talking a flat superstructure?”

“Yes.”

“Hold on,” said Yaeger. “Okay, you’ve lowered the numbers. Your mystery vessel looks like a barge.”

“Eureka,” exclaimed Giordino.

“Don’t cash in your coupons yet,” Yaeger cautioned. “The dimensions don’t fit any known barge in existence.”

“Damn!” Sandecker blurted. “So near, yet—”

“Wait,” Pitt cut in. “Suvorov gave us interior measurements.” He leaned over the speaker phone. “Yaeger, add two feet all around and run it through again.”

“You’re getting warmer,” Yaeger’s voice rasped over the speaker. “Try this on for size — no pun intended— one hundred and ninety-five by thirty-five by twelve feet.”

“Beam and height correspond,” said Pitt, “but your length is way off.”

“You gave me interior length between perpendicular bulkheads. I’m giving you overall length including a raked bow of twenty-five feet.”

“He’s right,” said Sandecker. “We didn’t allow for the scoop of the forward end.”

Yaeger continued. “What we’ve got is a dry cargo barge, steel construction, two hundred and eighty to three hundred tons — self-enclosed compartments for carrying grain, lumber and so forth. Probably manufactured by the Nashville Bridge Company, Nashville, Tennessee.”

“The draft?” Pitt pushed.

“Empty or loaded?”

“Empty.”

“Eighteen inches.”

“Thanks, pal. You’ve done it again.”

“Done what?”

“Go back to sleep.”

Pitt switched off the speaker and turned to Sandecker. “The smoke clears.”

Sandecker fairly beamed. “Clever, clever people, the Bougainvilles.”

Pitt nodded. “I have to agree. The last place anyone would look for an expensively equipped laboratory is inside a rusty old river barge moored in a swamp.”

“She also has the advantage of being movable,” said Sandecker. The admiral referred to any vessel, scow or aircraft carrier in the feminine gender. “A tug can transport and dock her anywhere the water depth is over a foot and a half.”

Pitt stared at the aerial photo pensively. “The next test is to determine where the Bougainvilles hid it again.”

“The creek where she was tied leads into the Stono River,” Sandecker noted.

“And the Stono River is part of the Intracoastal Waterway,” Pitt added. “They can slip it into any one of ten thousand rivers, streams, bays and sounds from Boston to Key West.”

“No way of second-guessing the destination,” Giordino murmured dejectedly.

“They won’t keep it in South Carolina waters,” Pitt said. “Too obvious. The catch, as I see it, boils down to north or south, and a distance of six, maybe eight hundred miles.”

“A staggering job,” Sandecker said in a soft voice, “untangling her from the other barges plying the eastern waterways. They’re thicker than leaves in a New England October.”

“Still, it’s more than we had to go on before,” Pitt said hopefully.

Sandecker turned from the photo. “Better give Emmett a call and steer him onto our discovery. Someone in his army of investigators may get lucky and stumble on the right barge.”

The admiral’s words were empty of feeling. He didn’t want to say what was on his mind.

If Lee Tong Bougainville suspected government investigators were breathing down his neck, his only option would be to kill the Vice President and Loren, and dispose of their bodies to cover his tracks.

65

“The patient will live to fight another day,” said Dr. Harold Gwynne, the President’s physician, cheerfully. He was a cherubic little man with a balding head and friendly blue eyes. “A common case of the flu bug. Stay in bed for a couple of days until the fever subsides. I’ll give you an antibiotic and something to relieve the nausea.”

“I can’t stay on my back,” the President protested weakly. “Too much work to do.”

There was little fight in his words. The chills from a 103-degree fever sandbagged him, and he was constantly on the verge of vomiting. His throat was sore, his nose stuffed up and he felt rotten from scalp to toenails.

“Relax and take it easy,” Gwynne ordered. “The world can turn without you for a few hours.” He jabbed a needle into the President’s arm and then held a glass of water for him to wash down a pill.

Dan Fawcett entered the bedroom. “About through, Doc?” he inquired.

Gwynne nodded. “Keep him off his feet. I’ll check back around two o’clock this afternoon.” He smiled warmly, closed his black bag and stepped through the door.

“General Metcalf is waiting,” Fawcett said to the President.

The President pushed a third pillow behind his back and struggled to a sitting position, massaging his temples as the room began to spin.

Metcalf was ushered in, resplendent in a uniform decorated by eight rows of colorful ribbons. There was a briskness about the general that was not present at their last meeting.

The President looked at him, his face pallid, his eyes drooping and watery. He began to hack uncontrollably.

Metcalf came over to the bed. “Is there anything I can get you, sir?” he asked solicitously.

The President shook his head and waved him away. “I’ll survive,” he said at last. “What’s the situation, Clayton?”

The President never called his Joint Chiefs by rank, preferring to lower them a couple of notches down their pedestal by addressing them with their Christian names.

Metcalf shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “The streets are quiet at the moment, but there were one or two isolated incidents of sniping. One soldier was killed and two Marines wounded.”

“Were the guilty parties apprehended?”

“Yes, sir,” Metcalf answered.

“A couple of criminal radicals, no doubt.”

Metcalf stared at his feet. “Not exactly. One was the son of Congressman Jacob Whitman of South Dakota and the other the son of Postmaster General Kenneth Potter. Both were under seventeen years of age.”

The President’s face looked stricken for an instant and then it quickly hardened. “Are your troops deployed at Lisner Auditorium?”

“One company of Marines is stationed on the grounds around the building.”

“Hardly seems enough manpower,” said the President. “The Maryland and Virginia Guard units combined will outnumber them five to one.”

“The Guard will never come within rifle shot of the auditorium,” said Metcalf knowingly. “Our plan is to defuse their effectiveness by stopping them before they arrive in the city.”

“A sound strategy,” the President said, his eyes briefly gleaming.

“I have a special news report,” said Fawcett, who was kneeling in front of the television set. He turned up the volume and stood aside so the picture could be seen from the bed.

Curtis Mayo was standing beside a highway blocked by armed soldiers. In the background a line of tracks stretched across the road, the muzzles of their guns pointing ominously at a convoy of personnel carriers.

“The Virginia National Guard troops that Speaker of the House Alan Moran was relying on to protect a meeting of Congress on the George Washington University campus this morning have been turned back outside the nation’s capital by armored units of the Army special forces. I understand the same situation exists with the Maryland Guard northeast of the city. So far there has been no threat of fighting. Both state Guard units appeared subdued, if not in numbers, by superior equipment. Outside Lisner Auditorium, a company of Marines, under the command of Colonel Ward Clarke, a Vietnam Medal of Honor holder, is turning away members of Congress, refusing them entrance to hold a session. And so once again the President has thwarted House and Senate members while he continues his controversial foreign affairs programs without their approval. This is Curtis Mayo, CNN news, on a highway thirty miles south of Washington.”

“Seen enough?” asked Fawcett, turning off the set.

“Yes, yes,” the President rasped happily. “That ought to keep that egomaniac Moran floundering without a rudder for a while.”

Metcalf rose to his feet. “If you won’t need me any further, Mr. President, I should be getting back to the Pentagon. Conditions are pretty unsettled with our division commanders in Europe. They don’t exactly share your views on pulling back their forces to the States.”

“In the long haul they’ll come to accept the risks of a temporary military imbalance in order to dilute the dreaded specter of nuclear conflict.” The President shook Metcalf’s hand. “Nice piece of work, Clayton. Thank you for keeping Congress paralyzed.”

Metcalf walked along the corridor for fifty feet until it emptied into the vast interior of a barren warehouselike structure.

The stage set that contained an exact replica of the President’s White House bedroom sat in the middle of the Washington Navy Yard’s old brick ordnance building, which had gone virtually unused since World War Two.

Every detail of the deception was carefully planned and executed. A sound technician operated a stereo recorder whose tape played the muted sounds of street traffic at a precise volume. The lighting outside the bedroom windows matched the sky exactly, with an occasional shadowed effect to simulate a passing cloud. The filters over the lamps were set to emit changing yellow-orange rays to duplicate the day’s movement of the sun. Even the plumbing in the adjacent bathroom worked with the familiar sounds of the original, but emptying its contents into a septic tank rather than the Washington city sewer system. The huge concrete floor was heavily populated with Marine guards and Secret Service agents, while overhead, amid great wooden rafters, men stood on catwalks manning the overhead lighting system.

Metcalf stepped across a network of electrical cables and entered a large mobile trailer parked against the far wall. Oates and Brogan were waiting and invited him into a walnut-paneled office.

“Coffee?” Brogan asked, holding up a glass urn.

Metcalf nodded gratefully, reached for a steaming cup and sank into a chair. “My God, for a minute there I could have sworn I was in the White House.”

“Martin’s people did an amazing job,” said Oates. “He flew in a crew from a Hollywood studio and constructed the entire set in nine hours.”

“Did you have a problem moving the President?”

“The easy part,” replied Brogan. “We transferred him in the same moving van as the furniture. Strange as it might sound, the toughest hurdle was the paint.”

“How so?”

“We had to cover the walls with a material that didn’t have the smell of new paint. Fortunately, our chemists at the agency lab came up with a chalky substance they could tint that left no aroma.”

“The news program was an ingenious touch,” commented Metcalf.

“It cost us,” Oates explained. “We had to make a deal with Curtis Mayo to give him the exclusive story in return for his cooperation in broadcasting the phony news report. He also agreed to hold off a network investigation until the situation cools.”

“How long can you continue to deceive the President?”

“For as long as it takes,” answered Brogan.

“For what purpose?”

“To study the President’s brain patterns.”

Metcalf threw Brogan a very dubious look indeed.

“You haven’t convinced me. Stealing back the President’s mind from the Russians who stole it in the first place is stretching my gullibility past the breaking point.”

Brogan and Oates exchanged looks and smiled. “Would you like to see for yourself?” Oates asked.

Metcalf put down the coffee. “I wouldn’t miss it for a fifth star.”

“Through here,” Oates said, opening a door and gesturing for Metcalf to enter.

The entire midsection and one end of the mobile trailer was filled with exotic electronic and computer hardware. The monitoring data center was a generation ahead of Lugovoy’s equipment on board the Bougainville laboratory.

Dr. Raymond Edgely noticed their appearance and came over. Oates introduced him to General Metcalf.

“So you’re the mysterious genius who heads up Fathom,” Metcalf said. “I’m honored to meet you.”

“Thank you, General,” Edgely said. “Secretary Oates tells me you have some suspicions about the project.”

Metcalf looked around the busy complex, studying the scientists who were engrossed in the digital readings on the monitors. “I admit I’m puzzled by all this.”

“Basically, it’s quite simple,” Edgely said. “My staff and I are intercepting and accumulating data on the President’s brain rhythms in preparation for switching control from his cerebral implant to our own unit, which you see before you.”

Metcalf’s skepticism melted away. “Then this is all true. The Russians really are dominating his thoughts.”

“Of course. It was their instructions to close down Congress and the Supreme Court so he could instigate projects beneficial to the Communist bloc without legislative roadblocks. The order to withdraw our troops from NATO is a perfect example. Exactly what the Soviet military wants for Christmas.”

“And you people can actually take the place of the President’s mind?”

Edgely nodded. “Do you have any messages you wish sent to the Kremlin? Some misleading information perhaps?”

Metcalf brightened like a searchlight. “I think my intelligence people can write some interesting science fiction that should spur them to draw all the wrong conclusions.”

“When do you expect to release the President from Lugovoy’s command?” Brogan asked.

“I think we can make the transfer in another eight hours,” answered Edgely.

“Then we’ll get out of the way and leave you to your work,” Oates said.

They left the data acquisition room and returned to the outer office, where they found Sam Emmett waiting. Oates could see that the expression on his face spelled trouble.

“I’ve just come from Capitol Hill,” Emmett said. “They’re acting like animals in a zoo who haven’t been fed. Debate over impeachment is raging in Congress. The President’s party is making a show of loyalty, but that’s all it is — a show. There is no support on a broad front. Desertions come in wholesale lots.”

“What about committee?” asked Oates.

“The opposition party rammed through a floor vote to bypass a committee investigation to save time.”

“A guess as to when they’ll decide?”

“The House may vote on impeachment this afternoon.”

“The odds?”

“Five to one in favor.”

“The Senate?”

“Not in the cards. A straw vote indicates the Senate will vote to convict with considerably more than the necessary two-thirds majority.”

“They’re not wasting any time.”

“Considering the President’s recent actions, the impeachment proceedings are looked upon as a national emergency.”

“Any show of support for Vince Margolin?”

“Of course, but no one can stand behind him if he doesn’t put in an appearance. Sixty seconds after the President is swept from office, someone has to take the oath as successor. The rumor mills have him hiding out until the last minute so he won’t be associated with the President’s crazy policies.”

“What about Moran?”

“This is where it gets sticky. He’s claiming he has proof that Margolin committed suicide and that I am covering up the fact.”

“Anybody believe him?”

“Doesn’t matter if he’s believed. The news media are jumping on his statements like ants on honey. His news conferences are getting massive attention, and he’s demanding Secret Service protection. His aides have already drafted a transition plan and named his inner circle of advisers. Shall I go on?”

“The picture is clear,” Oates said resignedly. “Alan Moran will be the next President of the United States.”

“We can’t allow it,” Emmett said coldly.

The others stared at him. “Unless we can produce Vince Margolin by tomorrow,” asked Brogan, “how can we prevent it?”

“Any way possible,” said Emmett. He produced a folder from an attaché case. “I’d like you gentlemen to take a look at this.”

Oates opened the folder and studied the contents without comment, and then passed it on to Brogan, who in turn handed it to Metcalf. When they finished they gazed at Emmett as if silently nominating him to speak first.

“What you gentlemen read in the report is true,” he said simply.

“Why hasn’t this come out before?” Oates demanded.

“Because there was never a reason to order an in-depth investigation into the man before,” answered Emmett. “The FBI is not in the habit of revealing skeletons in our legislators’ closets unless there is solid evidence of criminal activity in their backgrounds. Dirt on divorces, petty misdemeanors, sexual perversions or traffic violations we file in a vault and look the other way. Moran’s file showed him to be clean, too clean for someone who clawed his way to the top without benefit of education, average intelligence, a penchant for hard work, wealth or important contacts. Nothing about his character indicated aggressiveness or talent. As you can see the results aren’t exactly a recommendation for a pope.”

Metcalf scanned the report again. “This stock brokerage firm in Chicago, what is it called? Ah, yes, Blackfox and Churchill.”

“A front to launder Moran’s bribery and payoff operation. The names came off tombstones in a Fargo, North Dakota, cemetery. Bogus stock transactions are conducted to hide bribe money from shady special-interest groups, defense contractors, state and city officials seeking federal funding and not caring how they get it, underworld payments for favors. Speaker of the House Moran makes the Bougainvilles look like Boy Scouts.”

“We’ve got to go public with this,” Brogan said adamantly.

“I wouldn’t push it,” cautioned Oates. “Moran would go to any length to deny it, claiming it was a frame-up to keep him from leading the country to reconciliation and unity. I can see him pleading for the American tradition of fair play while he’s hanging from the cross. And by the time the Justice Department can make things tough for him, he will have been sworn in as President. Let’s face it, you can’t put the country through two impeachment proceedings in the same year.”

Metcalf nodded his head in agreement. “Coming on the heels of the President’s insane policies and Moran’s ravings about the Vice President’s presumed death, the upheaval may prove more than the public can accept. A complete loss of confidence in the federal system could ignite a voters’ revolt during the next election.”

“Or worse,” Emmett added. “More and more people are refusing to pay taxes on the rationale they don’t like where their tax dollars are spent. And you can’t blame them for not wanting to support a government managed by inept leaders and rip-off artists. You get five million people out there who tear up their tax forms come next April fifteenth, and the federal machinery as we know it will cease to function.”

The four men sat in the trailer office like frozen figures in a painting. The fantasy of their conjecture was not implausible. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The prospects of surviving the storm unscathed seemed remote.

At last Brogan said, “We’re lost without Vince Margolin.”

“That fellow Pitt over at NUMA gave us our first tangible lead,” said Brogan.

“So what have you got?” asked Metcalf.

“Pitt deduced that the mind control laboratory where Margolin is held is inside a river barge.”

“A what?” Metcalf asked as if he hadn’t heard right.

“River barge,” Emmett repeated. “Moored God knows where along the inland water route.”

“Are you searching?”

“With every available agent Martin and I can spare from both our agencies.”

“If you give me a few more details and come up with a quick plan to coordinate our efforts, I’ll throw in whatever forces the Defense Department can muster in the search areas.”

“That would certainly help, General,” said Oates. “Thank you.”

The phone rang and Oates picked it up. After listening silently for a moment, he set it down. “Crap!”

Emmett had never heard Oates use such an expletive before. “Who was that?”

“One of my aides reporting from the House of Representatives.”

“What did he say?”

“Moran just railroaded through passage of the impeachment vote.”

“Then nothing stands between him and the Presidency except trial by the Senate,” Brogan said.

“He’s moved up the timetable by a good ten hours,” said Metcalf.

“If we can’t produce the Vice President by this time tomorrow,” Emmett said, “we can kiss the United States goodbye.”

66

Giordino found Pitt in his hangar, sitting comfortably in the back seat of an immense open touring car, his feet propped sideways on a rear door. Giordino couldn’t help admiring the classic lines of the tourer. Italian built in 1925, with coachwork by Cesare Sala, the red torpedo-bodied Isotta-Fraschini sported long, flared fenders, a disappearing top and a coiled cobra on the radiator cap.

Pitt was contemplating a blackboard mounted on a tripod about ten feet from the car. A large nautical chart depicting the entire inland water route was tacked to the outer frame. Across the board he had written several notations and what appeared to Giordino as a list of ships.

“I’ve just come from the admiral’s office,” Giordino said.

“What’s the latest?” Pitt asked, his eyes never leaving the blackboard.

“The Joint Chiefs of Staff have thrown the armed forces into the hunt. Combined with agents from the FBI and CIA, they should be able to cover every inch of shoreline by tomorrow evening.”

“On the ground, by the sea and in the air,” Pitt murmured uninterestedly. “From Maine to Florida.”

“Why the sour grapes?”

“A damned waste of time. The barge isn’t there,” Pitt said, flipping a piece of chalk in the air.

Giordino shot him a quizzical look. “What are you babbling about? The barge has to be in there somewhere.”

“Not necessarily.”

“You saying they’re searching in the wrong place?”

“If you were the Bougainvilles, you’d expect an exhaustive, whole-hog hunt, right?”

“Elementary reasoning,” Giordino said loftily. “Me, I’d be more inclined to camouflage the barge under a grove of trees, hide it inside an enclosed waterfront warehouse, or alter the exterior to look like a giant chicken coop or whatever. Seems to me concealment is the logical way to go.”

Pitt laughed. “Your chicken coop brainstorm, now that’s class.”

“You got a better idea?”

Pitt stepped out of the Isotta, went to the blackboard and folded over the inland waterway chart, revealing another chart showing the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico. “As it happens, yes, I do.” He tapped his finger on a spot circled in red ink. “The barge holding Margolin and Loren captive is somewhere around here.”

Giordino moved closer and examined the marked area. Then he looked at Pitt with an expression usually reserved for people who held signs announcing the end of the world.

“New Orleans?”

“Below New Orleans,” Pitt corrected. “I judge it to be moored there now.”

Giordino shook his head. “I think your brakes went out. You’re telling me Bougainville towed a barge from Charleston, around the tip of Florida and across the gulf to the Mississippi River, almost seventeen hundred miles in less than four days? Sorry, pal, the tug isn’t built that can push a barge that fast.”

“Granted,” Pitt allowed. “But suppose they cut off seven hundred miles?”

“How?” inquired Giordino, his voice a combination of doubt and sarcasm. “By installing wheels and driving it cross-country?”

“No joke,” Pitt said seriously. “By towing it through the recently opened Florida Cross State Canal from Jacksonville on the Atlantic to Crystal River on the Gulf of Mexico, shortcutting the entire southern half of the state.”

The revelation sparked Giordino. He peered at the chart again, studying the scale. Then, using his thumb and forefinger as a pair of dividers, he roughly measured the reduced distance between Charleston and New Orleans. When he finally turned and looked at Pitt, he wore a sheepish smile.

“It works.” Then the smile quickly faded. “So what does it prove?”

“The Bougainvilles must have a heavily guarded dock facility and terminal where they unload their illegal cargoes. It probably sits on the banks of the river somewhere between New Orleans and the entrance to the gulf.”

“The Mississippi Delta?” Giordino showed his puzzlement. “How’d you pull that little number out of the hat?”

“Take a look,” Pitt said, pointing to the list of ships on the blackboard and then reading them off. “The Pilottown, Belle Chasse, Buras, Venice, Boothville, Chalmette—all ships under foreign registry but at one time owned by Bougainville Maritime.”

“I fail to make the connection.”

“Take another look at the chart. Every one of those ships is named after a town along the river delta.”

“A symbolic cipher?”

“The only mistake the Bougainvilles ever let slip, using a code to designate their area of covert operations.”

Giordino peered closer. “By God, it fits like a girl in tight shorts.”

Pitt rapped the chart with his knuckles. “I’ll bet my Isotta-Fraschini against your Bronco that’s where we’ll find Loren.”

“You’re on.”

“Run over to the NUMA air terminal and sign out a Lear jet. I’ll contact the admiral and explain why we’re flying to New Orleans.”

Giordino was already heading toward the door. “I’ll have the plane checked out and ready for takeoff when you get there,” he called over his shoulder.

Pitt hurried up the stairs to his apartment and threw some clothes in an overnight bag. He opened a gun cabinet and took out an old Colt Thompson submachine serial number 8545, and two loaded drums of.45-caliber cartridges and laid them in a violin case. Then he picked up the phone and called Sandecker’s office.

He identified himself to Sandecker’s private secretary and was put through. “Admiral?”

“Dirk?”

“I think I’ve got the barge area fixed.”

“Where?”

“The Mississippi River Delta. Al and I are leaving for there now.”

“What makes you think it’s in the delta?”

“Half guess, half deduction, but it’s the best lead we’ve got.”

Sandecker hesitated before replying. “You’d better hold up,” he said quietly.

“Hold up? What are you talking about?”

“Alan Moran is demanding the search be called off.”

Pitt was stunned. “What in hell for?”

“He says it’s a waste of time and taxpayers’ money to continue, because Vince Margolin is dead.”

“Moran is full of crap.”

“He has the clothes Margolin was wearing the night they all disappeared to back up his claim.”

“We still have Loren to think about.”

“Moran says she’s dead too.”

Pitt felt like he was sinking in quicksand. “He’s a damned liar!”

“Maybe so, but if he’s right about Margolin, you’re defaming the next President of the United States.”

“The day that little creep takes the oath is the day I turn in my citizenship.”

“You probably won’t be alone,” Sandecker said sourly. “But your personal feelings don’t alter the situation.”

Pitt stood unbudging. “I’ll call you from Louisiana.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. Stay in close contact. I’ll do everything I can to help from this end.”

“Thanks, you old fraud.”

“Get your ass in gear and tell Giordino to stop swiping my cigars.”

Pitt grinned and hung up. He finished packing and hurried from the hangar. Three minutes after he drove off, his phone began to ring.

Two hundred miles away an ashen-faced Sal Casio despairingly waited in vain for an answer.

67

Ten minutes after twelve noon, Alan Moran walked through the main corridor of the Capitol, down a narrow staircase and opened the door to an out-of-the-way office he kept for privacy. Most men in his position were constantly surrounded by a hive of aides, but Moran preferred to travel a solitary trail, unhindered by inane conversation.

He always wore the wary look of an antelope scanning the African plain for predators. He had the expressionless eyes of a man whose only love was power, power attained by whatever means, at whatever cost. To achieve his prestigious position in Congress, Moran had carefully nurtured a billboard image. In his public life he oozed a religious fervor, the personification of the friendly shy man with a warm sense of humor, the appeal of the neighbor next door, ever ready to lend his lawn mower, and the past of a man born underprivileged, self-made.

His private life couldn’t have been more at odds. He was a closet atheist who looked on his constituents and the general public as ignorant rabble whose chronic complaints led to an open license to twist and control for his own advantage. Never married, with no close friends, he lived frugally like a penitent monk in a small rented apartment. Every dollar over and above subsistence level went into his secret corporation in Chicago, where it was added to funds obtained through illegal contributions, bribes and other corrupt investments. Then it was spread and sown to increase his power base until there were few men and women with top positions in business and government who weren’t tied to his coattails by political favors and influence.

Douglas Oates, Sam Emmett, Martin Brogan, Alan Mercier and Jesse Simmons, who was recently released from house arrest, were seated in Moran’s office as he entered. They all rose as he took his place behind a desk. There was an air of smugness about him that was obvious to his visitors. He had summoned them to his private territory and they had no choice but to respond.

“Thank you for meeting with me, gentlemen,” he said with a false smile. “I assume you know the purpose.”

“To discuss your possible succession to the Presidency,” Oates replied.

“There is no possible about it,” Moran rejoined waspishly. “The Senate is scheduled to begin the trial at seven o’clock this evening. As next in line to the executive office, I feel it is my sworn duty to take the oath immediately afterward and assume the responsibility for healing the wounds caused by the President’s harmful delusions.”

“Aren’t you jumping the gun?” asked Simmons.

“Not if it means stopping the President from any more outrageous actions.”

Oates looked dubious. “Some people might interpret your undue reaction, at least until Vince Margolin is proven dead, as an improper attempt to usurp power, especially when considering your part in motivating the President’s ouster.”

Moran glared at Oates and shifted his stare to Emmett. “You have the Vice President’s clothing that was found in the river.”

“My FBI lab has identified the clothing as belonging to Margolin,” acknowledged Emmett. “But it shows no indication of being immersed in water for two weeks.”

“Most likely it washed onshore and dried out.”

“You say the fisherman who came to your office with the evidence stated he snagged it in the middle of the Potomac River.”

“You’re the Director of the FBI,” snapped Moran angrily. “You figure it out. I’m not on trial here.”

“Perhaps it would be in the best interests of everyone present,” Oates said quietly, “to continue the search for Margolin.”

“I’m in total agreement,” said Brogan. “We can’t write him off until we find his body.”

“Questions will most certainly arise,” added Mercier. “For example, how did he die?”

“Obviously he drowned,” Moran answered. “Probably when the Eagle sank.”

“Also,” Mercier continued, “you never satisfactorily explained when and how you and Marcus Larimer disembarked from the Eagle and traveled to an as-yet-undisclosed resort for your Caribbean fishing trip.”

“I’ll be happy to answer any questions before a congressional investigating committee,” said Moran. “Certainly not here and now in front of people who are in opposition to me.”

“You must understand, in spite of his mistakes, our loyalties lie with the President,” said Oates.

“I don’t doubt it for a minute,” said Moran. “That’s why I summoned you here this morning. Ten minutes after the Senate votes, I will be sworn in as President. My first official act will be to announce either your resignations or firings; you have your choice. As of midnight tonight, none of you will be working for the United States government.”

The narrow paved road snaked through the high hills that dropped steeply into the Black Sea. In the rear seat of a Cadillac Seville stretch limousine, Vladimir Polevoi sat reading the latest report from Aleksei Lugovoy. Every once in a while he looked up and gazed at the dawn sun creeping past the horizon.

The limousine turned heads wherever it rolled. Custom built with inlaid wood cabinets, color TV, electric divider, liquor bar and overhead stereo console, it had been ordered purchased by Polevoi and transported to Moscow under the guise of studying its mechanical technology. Shortly after its arrival he’d commandeered it as his own.

The long car climbed around the forested edge of a craggy cliff until the road ended at a huge wooden door hinged to a high brick wall. A uniformed officer saluted the KGB chief and pressed a switch. The door silently swung open to a vast garden that blazed with flowers, and the car was driven in and parked beside a spreading one-story house, constructed in a Western contemporary design.

Polevoi walked up circular stone steps and entered a foyer, where he was greeted by President Antonov’s secretary and escorted to a table and chairs on a terrace overlooking the sea.

After a few moments Antonov appeared, followed by a pretty servant girl carrying a huge plate of smoked salmon, caviar and iced vodka. Antonov seemed in a happy mood and casually sat on the iron railing around the terrace.

“You have a beautiful new dacha,” said Polevoi.

“Thank you. I had it designed by a firm of French architects. They didn’t charge me a ruble. It won’t pass critical inspection by a state building committee, of course. Too bourgeois. But what the hell. Times are changing.” Then he switched the subject abruptly. “What news of events in Washington?”

“The President will be removed from office,” answered Polevoi.

“When?”

“By this time tomorrow.”

“No doubt of this.”

“None.”

Antonov picked up his vodka glass and emptied it, and the girl immediately refilled it. Polevoi suspected the girl did more than simply pour vodka for the head of the Soviet Union.

“Did we miscalculate, Vladimir?” Antonov asked. “Did we expect to accomplish too much too quickly?”

“Nobody can second-guess the Americans. They don’t behave in predictable ways.”

“Who will be the new President?”

“Alan Moran, Speaker of the House of Representatives.”

“Can we work with him?”

“My sources say he has a devious mind, but can be swayed.”

Antonov stared at a tiny fishing boat far below on the water. “If given the choice, I’d prefer Moran over Vice President Margolin.”

“Most definitely,” Polevoi agreed. “Margolin is a dedicated enemy of our Communist society, and an adamant believer in expanding the American military machine beyond our own.”

“Anything our people can do, discreetly, of course, to assist Moran into the White House?”

Polevoi shook his head. “Very little worth the risk of exposure and adverse propaganda.”

“Where is Margolin?”

“Still in the hands of the Bougainvilles.”

“Any chance that that old Oriental bitch will release him in time to cut out Moran?”

Polevoi shrugged helplessly. “Who can predict her schemes with any accuracy?”

“If you were her, Vladimir, what would you do?”

Polevoi paused thoughtfully, then said, “I’d strike a deal with Moran to dispose of Margolin.”

“Has Moran the guts to accept?”

“If one man who was being held prisoner in an extremely vulnerable situation stood between you and leadership of a superpower, how would you play it?”

Antonov broke into a loud laugh that frightened a nearby bird into flight. “You read through me like glass, old friend. I see your point. I wouldn’t hesitate to remove him.”

“The American news media report that Moran is claiming Margolin committed suicide by drowning.”

“So your theory is on firm ground,” said Antonov. “Maybe the old Steel Lotus will end up doing us a favor after all.”

“At least our deal with her didn’t cost anything.”

“Speaking of cost, what is the status of the gold?”

“Admiral Borchavski has begun salvage operations. He expects to raise every bar within three weeks.”

“That’s good news,” said Antonov. “And what of Dr. Lugovoy? Can he continue his project after the President is cast from office?”

“He can,” Polevoi replied. “Locked inside the President’s head is a vast treasure store of United States secrets. Lugovoy has yet to tap it.”

“Then keep the project going. Provide Lugovoy with an extensive list of delicate political and military subjects we wish explored. All American leaders who leave office are consulted for their experience, regardless of inept handling of their administrations. The capitalist masses have short memories. The knowledge the President now possesses and has yet to learn from briefings by his successors can be of great benefit to us in the future. This time we shall practice patience and probe slowly. The President’s brain may turn out to be a goose that lays golden intelligence eggs for decades to come.”

Polevoi raised his glass. “A toast to the best secret agent we ever recruited.”

Antonov smiled. “Long may he produce.”

Across half a world, Raymond Edgely sat at a console and read the data that unrolled from a paper recorder. He raised his glasses and rubbed his reddened eyes. Despite his seeming tiredness, there was a tightly contained nervous energy about him. His competitive juices were stirred. The opportunity to beat his most esteemed counterpart in a game of psychological intrigue drove him beyond any thought of sleep.

Dr. Harry Greenberg, a respected psychiatric researcher in his own right, lit a curved-stem clay pipe. After stoking the stained yellow bowl to life, he pointed the mouthpiece at the recorder.

“No sense in waiting any longer, Ray. I’m satisfied we have the necessary data to make the switch.”

“I hate to rush in before I’m certain we can fool Aleksei.”

“Do it,” Greenberg urged. “Stop screwing around and go for it.”

Edgely looked around at his ten-member team of psychologists. They stared back at him expectantly. Then he nodded. “Okay, everybody stand by to transfer thought communication from the President’s implant to our central computer.”

Greenberg walked around the room, briefly talking to everyone, double-checking the procedures. Three sat at the computer console, their hands poised over the buttons. The rest studied the display screens and monitored the data.

Edgely nervously wiped his palms on a handkerchief. Greenberg stood slightly off to one side and behind him.

“We don’t want to break in during a thought pattern or in the middle of Lugovoy’s instructions,” Greenberg cautioned.

“I’m aware of that,” Edgely said without taking his eyes from the brainwave translator display. “Our computer transmission also has to match his heart rate and other life functions exactly.”

The programmer punched in the command and waited. They all waited, watching the empty screen that would reveal success or failure. The minutes ticked by, nobody speaking, the only sounds coming from the soft hum of the electronic hardware as the computer poised for the precise millisecond to take command. Then suddenly the display screen read: “COMMUNICATIONS TRANSFER ACCOMPLISHED.”

They all expelled a collective sigh of relief and began talking again, and shaking hands with the enthusiasm of a NASA flight control center after a successful rocket launch.

“Think Aleksei will fall for it?” Edgely asked.

“Don’t worry. No suspicion will ever cross his mind. Aleksei Lugovoy’s ego will never allow him to believe somebody pulled the wool over his eyes.” Greenberg paused to expel a smoke ring. “He’ll swallow everything we hand him and send it off to Moscow as if he was God’s gift to espionage.”

“I hope so,” said Edgely, dabbing at his sweating forehead. “The next step is to get the President over to Walter Reed Hospital and remove the implant.”

“First things first,” said Greenberg, producing a bottle of champagne as a staff member passed out glasses. The cork was popped and the wine poured. Greenberg held up his glass.

“To Doc Edgely,” he said, grinning, “who just set the KGB back ten years.”