Clive Cussler

"How is it a project of such importance was researched and developed without presidential or congressional knowledge?" asked the vice-president.

"The former president knew," Sandecker explained. "He had a fancy for supporting futuristic concepts. As I'm sure you're aware of by now, he secretly funded an undercover think tank called Meta Section. It was Meta Section scientists who designed the Doodlebug. Wrapped in security, the plans were given to NUMA. The President arranged the bankroll, and we built it."

"And it actually works?" the President pressed.

"Proof positive," Sandecker answered. "Our initial test runs have pinpointed commercially obtainable deposits of gold, manganese, chromium, aluminum and at least ten other elements including uranium."

The men around the table had a varied display of expressions. The President looked at Sandecker strangely. Admiral Kemper's face was impassive. The rest stared in open disbelief.

"Are you suggesting you can determine the extent of the deposit as well as an appraisal of its worth?" Douglas Oates asked dubiously.

"Within a few seconds of detecting the element or mineral, the Doodlebug computes a precise evaluation of ore reserve data, projected mining costs and operating profits and, of course, the exact coordinates of the location." If Sandecker's audience had appeared skeptical before, they looked downright incredulous now. Energy Secretary Klein asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

"How does the thing work?"

"The same basic principle as radar or marine depth sounders, except that the Doodlebug transmits a sharply focused, concentrated pulse of energy straight down into the earth. This high energy beam, similar in theory to a radio station that broadcasts different sound tones over the air, throws out various signal frequencies that are reflected by the geological formations it encounters. My engineers refer to it as sweep modulation. You can compare it to shouting across a canyon. When your voice hits a rock wall, you get a distinct echo. But if there are trees or foliage in the way, the echo comes back muffled."

"I still don't understand how it can identify specific minerals," said a confused Klein.

"Each mineral, each element in the makeup of the earth resonates at its own peculiar frequency. Copper resonates at about two thousand cycles. Iron at twenty-two hundred. Zinc at four thousand. Mud, rock and sand shale each have an individual signature that determines the quality of the signal that strikes and reflects off its surface. On a computer display, the readout looks like a vivid cross-section of the earth, because the various formations are color-coded."

"And you measure the depth of the deposit by the signal's time lag," Admiral Kemper commented. "You're quite right."

"Seems to me the signal would weaken and become distorted the deeper it goes," said Mercier.

"It does," admitted Sandecker. "The beam loses energy as it passes through the different earth layers. But by recording each encounter during the penetration, we've learned to expect and recognize the deviant reflections. We call this density tracking. The computers analyze the effect and transmit the corrected data in digital form."

The President shifted restlessly in his chair. "It all sounds unreal.

"It's real, all right," said Sandecker. "What it boils down to, gentlemen, is that a fleet of ten Doodlebugs could chart and analyze every geological formation under every cubic foot of seafloor in five years."

The room fell silent for several moments. Then Oates murmured reverently. "God, the potential is inconceivable."

CIA Director Brogan leaned over the table. "Any chance the Russians may be onto a similar instrument?"

Sandecker shook his head. "I don't think so. Until a few months ago we didn't have the technology to perfect the high energy beam. Even with a crash program starting from scratch, they'd need a decade to catch up."

"One question that needs answering," said Mercier. "Why the Labrador Sea? Why didn't you test the Doodlebug on our own continental shelf"

"I thought it best to conduct the trials in an isolated area far from normal shipping traffic."

"But why so close to the Canadian shore?"

"The Doodlebug stumbled on indications of oil."

"Oil?"

"Yes, the trail appeared to lead toward the Hudson Strait north of Newfoundland. I gave the order for the Doodlebug to deviate from its original course and follow the scent into Canadian waters. The responsibility for the loss of a very dear friend, his crew and the research vessel is mine and mine alone. No one else is to blame."

An aide entered the room like a wraith and offered coffee. When he reached Sandecker he laid a note at his elbow. It read,

URGENT I SEE YOU.

Giordino

"If I may beg a short interruption," said Sandecker. "I believe one of my staff is outside with updated information on the tragedy." The President gave him an understanding look and nodded in the direction of the doorway. "Of course. Please have him join us."

Giordino was shown into the cabinet room, his face beaming like a lighthouse.

"The Doodlebug and everyone on board came through," he blurted without preamble.

"What happened?" demanded Sandecker.

"The torpedo struck a rock outcropping fifty meters from the submersible. The concussion short-circuited the main terminals. It took Pitt and his men until an hour ago to make emergency repairs and reopen communications."

"No one was injured?" asked Admiral Kemper. "The hull remained tight?"

"Bumps and bruises," Giordino replied like a telegram. "One broken finger. No leaks reported."

"Thank God they're safe," said the President, suddenly all smiles.

Giordino could no longer continue to play it cool. "I haven't mentioned the best part."

Sandecker looked at him quizzically. "Best part?"

"Right after the computers came on line, the output analyzers went crazy. Congratulations, Admiral. The Doodlebug ran onto the granddaddy of stratigraphic traps."

Sandecker tensed. "Are you saying they found oil?"

"Initial indications suggest a field extending nearly ninety-five miles by three-quarters of a mile wide. The yield appears staggering. Projections put the paying sandbar at two thousand barrels per acre foot. The reserve could conceivably bring in eight billion barrels of oil."

No one around the table could say a word. They could only sit there, soaking up the enormous consequences of it all.

Giordino opened an attachd case and handed Sandecker a sheaf of papers. "I didn't have time to tie it with a ribbon, but here are preliminary figures, calculations and projections, including the estimated costs of drilling and production. Dr. King will have a more concise report when the Doodlebug has better surveyed the field."

"Where exactly is this strike?" asked Klein.

Giordino unrolled a chart and spread it on the table in front of the President. He began to outline the Doodlebug's course with a pencil.

"After the near miss by the torpedo, the crew of the Doodlebug took evasive action. They didn't know the sub's attack had been called off. Swinging on a northwest arc from the Labrador Sea, they hugged the seabed through Gray Strait south of the Button Islands and moved into Ungava Bay. It was here," Giordino paused to make a mark on the chart, "they discovered the oil field."

The excitement abruptly faded from the President's eyes. "Then it wasn't near the coast of Newfoundland?"

"No, sir. Newfoundland's provincial border ends -at a point of land at the entrance of Gray Strait. The oil strike was in the waters off Quebec."

The President's expression turned to a look of disappointment. He and Mercier stared at each other in stricken understanding.

"Of all the places in all the northern hemisphere," the President said barely above a whisper, "it had to be Quebec."

Part III

THE NORTH AMERICAN TREATY

APRIL 1989

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Pitt slipped Heidi's notes on the North American Treaty into a briefcase and nodded as the airline stewardess checked to see if his seat belt was clasped and his back rest was in an upright position. He massaged his temples, trying vainly to relieve a headache that had persisted since he changed planes at St. John's, Newfoundland.

Now that the Doodlebug's hectic sea trial were over, the little research vessel had been hoisted aboard its mother ship and transported to Boston for repairs and modifications. Bill Lasky and Sam Quayle left immediately for a week's vacation with their families. Pitt envied them. He was not afforded the luxury of a rest. Sandecker ordered him back to NUMA headquarters for a firsthand report on the expedition.

The plane's tires thumped onto the runway at Washington's National Airport a few minutes before seven. Pitt remained in his seat while the other passengers crowded prematurely into the aisles. One of the last to debark, he took his time, rightly figuring that no matter how slowly he wandered to the baggage claim, he always arrived before his luggage.

He found his car, a red 1966 AC Ford Cobra, in the V.I.P section of the parking lot where it had been left by his secretary earlier in the afternoon. A note was tucked in the steering wheel.

Dear Boss,

Welcome home.

Sorry I couldn't hang around to greet you, but I have a date. Get a good night's sleep.

I told the admiral your plane wouldn't arrive till tomorrow night. Have a day off on me.

Zerri

P.S. Almost forgot what it's like to drive a big old brute. Fun, fun, but oh what awful gas mileage.

Pitt smiled and engaged the starter, listening with pleasure as the 427-cubic-inch engine kicked into life with an obscene roar. While waiting for the temperature gauge to creep into the WARM, he reread the note.

Zerri Pochinsky was the lively type, her pretty face seldom without a contagious smile, hazel eyes mischievous and warm. She was thirty, never married, a mystery to Pitt, full-bodied, with long fawn-colored hair that fell below her shoulders. He'd thought more than once of having an affair with her. The invitation had been demurely signaled often enough. But with regret, he adhered to a law burned in the concrete of an office building somewhere, and learned the hard way during his younger, less disciplined days, that grief always comes to the man who plays games with his staff.

He shook off an erotic image of her inviting him between the sheets and crammed the Cobra into gear. The aging two-seater convertible leaped out of the parking lot and squeaked rubber as it swung onto the highway leading from the airport. He turned from the capital city and headed south, remaining on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. The Cobra's engine loafed along without effort as Pitt passed a stream of mini cars that made up the tail end of the evening traffic rush.

At a small town called Hague he turned off the highway and took a narrow road until he reached Coles Point. When the river came into sight he began studying names on the rural mailboxes beside the road's shoulder. His headlights picked out an elderly woman walking a large Irish setter.

He stopped and leaned toward the passenger window. "I beg your pardon, can you direct me to the Essex place?"

She gave Pitt a wary look and pointed behind the car. "You missed the Essex gate about a half mile back. The one with the iron lions."

"Yes, I recall seeing it."

Before Pitt could begin a U-turn, the woman bent down to the open window. "Won't find him home. Mr. Essex left four, maybe five weeks ago."

"Do you know when he'll return?" Pitt asked.

"Who's to say?" She shrugged. "He often closes down his house and goes to Palm Springs this time of year. Lets my son tend his oyster ponds. Mr. Essex just comes and goes; easy for him, being alone and all. Only way to tell he's gone to the desert is when his mailbox overflows."

Of all people to ask directions, Pitt thought, he had to pick the neighborhood busybody. "Thank you," he said. "You've been most helpful."

The woman's lined face suddenly became a mask of friendliness and her voice turned to molasses. "If you have a message for him, you can give it to me. I'll see that he gets it. I pick up all his mail and newspapers anyway."

Pitt looked at her. "He didn't stop his newspaper?"

She shook her head. "The man is as absentminded as they come. When my boy was working the ponds the other day he said he saw steam coming from the Essex house heating vents. Imagine going away and leaving the heat in the house on. Pure waste, considering the energy shortage."

"You said Mr. Essex lives alone?"

"Lost his wife ten years ago," answered busybody. "His three children are scattered all over. Hardly ever write the poor man."

Pitt thanked her again and rolled up the window before the woman could prattle on. He didn't have to look in the rearview mirror to know she had kept her eye on the car as he turned into the Essex drive.

He rolled through the trees, parked the Cobra in front of the house and switched off the ignition, but left the headlights on. He sat there a few moments, listening to the engine crackle from its heat, hearing a siren on the other side of the river in Maryland. It was a beautiful night. Clear and brisk. Lights sparkled on the river like Christmas ornaments.

The house stood dark and silent.

Pitt climbed out of the sports car and walked around the garage. He lifted the main door on its well-oiled hinges and peered at the two cars facing frontward, the bright work on their grills and bumpers gleaming under the Cobra's lights. One was a compact, a tiny, gas-saving, front-engined Ford. The other was an older Cadillac Brougham, one of the last of the big cars. They were both covered with a light layer of dust.

The interior of the Cadillac was immaculate and the odometer only showed 6400 miles. Both cars looked showroom new; even the underside of the fenders had been kept free of road grime. Pitt had begun to penetrate Essex's world. Judging from the loving care the former ambassador lavished on his automobiles, he was a meticulous and orderly man.

He eased the garage door back down and turned to face the house. The woman's son had been right. Wisps of whitish vapor drifted out of the vents on the roof and faded into the blackened sky. He stepped onto the front porch, found the chime button and pushed it. There was no reply, no movement on the other side of the picture windows whose drapes were tied open. Purely because it seemed the thing to do, he tried the door.

It opened.

Pitt stood there in momentary surprise. An unlocked front door was not in the script; neither was the rank stink of putrefaction that wafted over the threshold and invaded his nostrils.

He stepped inside, leaving the door open behind him. Then he groped for the light switch and flicked it on. The foyer was empty, as was the adjoining dining room. He moved swiftly through the house, beginning with the upstairs bedrooms. The terrible odor seemed everywhere. There was no pinning it down to a particular area. He returned downstairs and checked the living room and kitchen, quickly scanning their interiors before moving on. He almost missed the study, thinking the closed door merely opened to a closet.

John Essex sat in the overstuffed chair, his mouth agape, head twisted over and to the side in agony, a pair of glasses hanging grotesquely from a leathered ear. His once twinkling blue eyes had collapsed and depressed into the skull. Decomposition had been rapid because the thermostat in the room was set at 75F. He had been sitting there, strangely undiscovered for a month, struck dead, so the coroner would state, by a blood clot in the coronary artery.

Pitt could read the signs. During the first two weeks the body had turned green and bloated, popping the buttons from Essex's shirt. Then after the internal fluids had expelled and evaporated, the corpse began to shrivel and dry out, the skin stiffening to the consistency of tanned hide.

Sweat began to seep from Pitt's forehead. The stuffiness of the room, together with the stench, spun him to the verge of sickness. Holding a handkerchief over his nose, he struggled against the urge to vomit, and knelt in front of John Essex's corpse.

A book lay in the lap; one clawlike hand was clamped on the engraved cover. The cold finger of dread etched a path down Pitt's neck. He had seen death close up before, and his reaction was always the same: a feeling of repugnance that slowly gave way to a frightening realization that he too would someday look like the rotting thing in the chair.

Hesitantly, as though he half expected Essex to awake, he pried the book loose. Then he switched on a desk lamp and flipped through the pages. It looked to be some sort of diary or personal journal. He turned to the front heading. The words seemed to rise up from the yellowed paper.

PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS

By

RICHARD C. ESSEX

FOR

APRIL OF 1914

Pitt sat down behind the desk and began reading. After about an hour he stopped and looked at the remains of John Essex, his expression of revulsion replaced with one that was filled with pity. "You poor old fool," he said with sadness in his eyes.

Then he turned off the light and left, leaving the former ambassador to England alone once again in a darkened room.

The air was heavy with the smell of gunpowder as Pitt moved behind a row of muzzle-loading gun enthusiasts at a shooting range outside Fredericksburg, Virginia. He stopped at a baldheaded man who sat hunched over a bench, peering intently down the iron sights of a rifle barrel that was fully forty-six inches in length.

Joe Epstein, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun during working hours and an avid black powder rifleman on weekends, gently squeezed the trigger. The report came like a sharp thump, followed by a small whiff of dark smoke. Epstein checked his hit through a telescope and then began pouring another powder charge down the long barrel.

"The Indians will be all over you before you've reloaded that antique," Pitt said with a grin.

Epstein's eyes brightened in recognition. "I'll have you know I can get off four shots a minute if I hurry." Using pillow ticking as wadding, he rammed a lead ball past the muzzle. "I tried to call you."

"I've been on the go," Pitt said briefly. He nodded at the gun. "What is it?"

"A flintlock. Seventy-five-caliber Brown Bess. Carried by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War." He handed the gun to Pitt. "Care to try it?"

Pitt sat down at the bench and sighted on a target two hundred yards away. "Were you able to dig up anything?"

"The newspaper morgue had bits and pieces on microfilm." Epstein placed a small amount of powder in the flintlock's priming pan. "The trick is not to flinch when the flint ignites the powder in the pan."

Pitt pulled the lock mechanism back. Then he aimed and eased the trigger. The primer flashed almost in his eyes and carried down the touchhole. The charge in the barrel exploded an instant later and his shoulder felt as if it had been rammed by a pile driver.

Epstein stared through the telescope. "Eight inches, two o'clock of dead center. Not bad for a city dude." A voice over a loudspeaker announced a cease-fire and the shooters laid down their pieces and began walking across the range to replace their targets. "Come along and I'll tell you what I found."

Pitt nodded silently and followed Epstein down a slope toward the target area.

"You gave me two names, Richard Essex and Harvey Shields. Essex was undersecretary of state. Shields was his British counterpart, deputy secretary of the Foreign Office. Both career men, the workhorse type. Very little publicity on either man. Carried out their work behind the scenes. Apparently they were rather shadowy figures."

"You're only icing the cake, Joe. There has to be more."

"Not much. As near as I can tell, they never met, at least in their official roles."

"I have a photograph showing them coming out of the White House together."

Epstein shrugged. "My four hundredth mistaken conclusion for the year."

"What became of Shields?"

"He drowned on the Empress of Ireland."

"I know about the Empress. A passenger liner that sank in the St. Lawrence River after colliding with a Norwegian coal collier. Over a thousand lives were lost."

Epstein nodded. "I'd never heard of her until I read Shields' obituary. The sinking was one of the worst maritime disasters of the age."

"Strange. The Empress, the Titanic and the Lusitania all went under within three years of one another."

"Anyway, the body was never found. His family held a memorial service in some unpronounceable little village in Wales. That's all I can tell you about Harvey Shields."

They reached the target and Epstein studied the hits. "A six-inch grouping," he said. "Pretty good for an old smoothbore muzzle-loader."

"A seventy-five-caliber ball makes a nasty hole," said Pitt, eyeing the shredded target. "Think what it would do on flesh."

"I'd rather not." Epstein replaced the target and they began walking back to the shooting line.

"What about Essex?" asked Pitt.

"What can I tell you that you don't already know?"

"How he died, for starters."

"A train wreck," answered Epstein. "Bridge collapsed over the Hudson River. A hundred dead. Essex was one of them."

Pitt thought a moment. "Somewhere, buried in old records in the county where the accident occurred, there must be a report listing the effects found on the body."

"Not likely."

"Why do you say that?"

"Now we've touched on an intriguing parallel between Essex and Shields." He paused and looked at Pitt. "Both men were killed on the same day, May twenty-eighth, nineteen fourteen, and neither of their bodies were ever recovered."

"Great," Pitt sighed. "It never rains…... but then I didn't expect it to be cut-and-dried."

"Investigations into the past never are."

"The coincidence between the deaths of Essex and Shields seems unreal. Could there have been a conspiracy?"

Epstein shook his head. "I doubt it. Stranger things happen. Besides, why sink a ship and murder a thousand souls when Shields could have simply been tossed over the side somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic?"

"You're right, of course."

"You mind telling me what this is all about?"

"I'm not sure where any of this is leading, myself."

"If it's newsworthy, I hope you'll let me in on it."

"Too early to throw in the open. It may be nothing."

"I've known you too long, Dirk. You don't involve yourself with nothing."

"Let's just say I'm a sucker for historical mysteries."

"In that case I've got another one for you."

"Okay, lay it on me."

"The river under the bridge was dragged for over a month. Not a single body of a passenger or crewman ever turned up."

Pitt stopped and stared evenly at Epstein. "I don't buy that. It doesn't figure that a few bodies wouldn't have drifted downriver and beached on the shoreline."

"That's only the half of it," Epstein said with a cagey look. "The train wasn't found either."

"Jesus!"

"Out of professional curiosity I read up on the Manhattan Limited, as it was called. Divers went down for weeks after the tragedy, but turned up zero. The locomotive and all the coaches were written off as having sunk in quicksand. Directors of the New York Quebec Northern Railroad spent a fortune trying to recover a trace of their crack train. They failed, and finally threw in the towel. A short time later, the line was absorbed by the New York Central."

"And that was the end of it."

"Not quite," Epstein said. "It's claimed that the Manhattan Limited still makes its ghostly run."

"You're kidding."

"Scout's honor. Local residents in the Hudson River valley swear to seeing a phantom train as it turns from the shore and heads up the grade of the old bridge before it vanishes. Naturally, the apparition only appears after dark."

"Naturally," Pitt replied sarcastically. "You forgot the full moon and the howling of banshees."

Epstein shrugged and then laughed. "I thought you'd appreciate a touch of the macabre."

"You have copies of all this?"

"Sure. I figured you'd want them. There's five pounds of material on the sinking of the Empress and the investigation following the Hudson River bridge failure. I also scrounged up the names and addresses of a few people who make a hobby out of researching old ship and train disasters. It's all neatly packaged in an envelope out in the car." Epstein motioned toward the parking lot of the shooting range. "I'll get it for you."

"I appreciate your time and effort," said Pitt.

Epstein stared at him steadily. "One question, Dirk, you owe me that."

"Yes, I owe you that," Pitt acquiesced.

"Is this a NUMA project or are you on your own?"

"Strictly a personal show."

"I see." Epstein looked down on the ground and idly kicked a loose rock. "Did you know that a descendant of Richard Essex was recently found dead?"

"John Essex. Yes, I know."

"One of our reporters covered the story." Epstein paused and nodded in the direction of Pitt's Cobra. "A man matching your description, driving a red sports car, and asking directions to Essex's house was seen by a neighbor an hour before an anonymous phone call to the police tipped them off about his death."

"Coincidence," Pitt shrugged.

"Coincidence your ass," said Epstein. "What in hell are you up to?"

Pitt took a few steps in silence, his face set in a grim expression. Then he smiled slightly, and Epstein could have sworn the smile was tinged with foreboding.

"Believe me, my friend, when I say you don't want to know."

Graham Humberly's house sprawled over the top of a hill in Palos Verdes, a posh bedroom community of Los Angeles. The architecture was a blend of contemporary and California Spanish with rough coated plaster walls and ceilings, laced with massive weathered beams covered by a roof of curved red tile.

A large fountain splashed on the main terrace and spilled into a circular swimming pool. A spectacular panoramic view overlooked a vast carpet of city lights to the east, while the rear faced down on the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island to the west.

Music from a mariachi band and the tidal current of babble from a hundred voices greeted Shaw as he entered Humberty's home. Bartenders were feverishly mixing gallons of tequila margaritas while the caterers busily replenished spicy Mexican dishes on a buffet table that seemed to stretch into infinity.

A small man with a head too large for his shoulders approached. He was wearing a black dinner jacket with an oriental dragon embroidered on the back.

"Hello, I'm Graham Humberly," he said with a glossy smile. "Welcome to the party."

"Brian Shaw."

The smile remained glossy. "Ah, yes, Mr. Shaw. Sorry for not recognizing you, but our mutual friends didn't send me a photograph."

"You have a most impressive home. Nothing quite like it in England."

"Thank you. But the credit belongs to my wife. I preferred something more provincial. Fortunately, her taste surpassed mine."

Humberly's accent, Shaw guessed, hinted of Cornwall. "Is Commander Milligan present?"

Humberly took his arm and led him away from the crowd. "Yes, she's here," he said softly. "I had to invite every officer of the ship to make sure she'd come. Come along, I'll introduce you around."

"I'm not much for social dribble," said Shaw. "Suppose you point her out and I'll handle things on my own."

"As you wish." Humberly studied the mass of bodies milling around the terrace. Then his gaze stopped and he -nodded toward the bar. "The tall, rather attractive woman with blond hair in the blue dress."

Shaw easily picked her out in an admiring circle of white uniformed naval officers. She looked to be in her mid-thirties and radiated a warmth that escaped most women. She seemed to accept the attention naturally without any sign of caprice. Shaw liked what he saw at first glance.

"Perhaps I can smooth the way by separating her from the horde," said Humberly.

"Don't bother," replied Shaw. "By the way, do you have a car I might borrow?"

"I have a fleet. What have you got in mind, a chauffeured limousine?"

"Something with more spirit."

Humberly thought a moment. "Will a Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible be appropriate?"

"It should do nicely."

"You'll find it in the drive. A red one, The keys will be in the ignition."

"Thank you."

"Not at all. Good hunting."

Humberly returned to his duties as host. Shaw moved toward the bar and shouldered his way up to Heidi Milligan. A blond young lieutenant gave him an indignant stare. "A bit pushy, aren't you, dad?"

Shaw ignored him and smiled at Heidi. "Commander Milligan, I'm Admiral Brian Shaw. May I have a word with you…... alone."

Heidi studied his face a moment, trying to place him. She gave up and nodded. "Of course, Admiral."

The blond lieutenant looked as if he'd discovered his fly was open. "My apologies, sir. But I thought…..."

Shaw flashed him a benevolent smile. "Always remember, lad, it pays to know the enemy."

"I like your style, Admiral," Heidi shouted over the roar of the wind.

Shaw's foot pressed the accelerator another half inch, and the Rolls surged north along the San Diego freeway. He'd had no specific destination in mind when he left the party with Heidi. Thirty years had passed since he last saw Los Angeles. He drove aimlessly, depending only on the direction signs, not at all sure where they would take him.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes were wide and sparkling from exhilaration. He felt her hand grip his arm. "You better slow down," she yelled, "before you're stopped by a cop."

That he didn't need. Shaw eased off the gas pedal and let the car coast down to the legal speed limit. He turned on the FM radio and a Strauss waltz settled over the car. He started to change the station, but she touched his hand.

"No, leave it." She leaned back in the seat and gazed up at the stars. "Where are we going?"

"An old Scottish ploy," he laughed. "Abduct females to distant places…... that way they must become interested in you if they want to get home."

"Won't work." She laughed. "I'm already three thousand miles away from home."

"Without a uniform too."

"Naval regulation: Lady officers are allowed to dress in civilian attire for social functions."

"Three cheers for the American navy."

She looked at him speculatively. "I've never known an admiral who drove a Rolls-Royce."

He smiled. "There are dozens of us on-the-beach, old British sea dogs who wouldn't be caught in any other car."

"Three cheers for your navy," she laughed.

"Seriously, I made a few wise investments when I commanded a naval depot in Ceylon."

"What do you do now that you're retired from service?"

"Write mostly. Historical books. Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, The Admiralty in World War I, that sort of thing. Hardly the stuff best-sellers are made of, but there's a certain amount of prestige attached to it."

She looked at him strangely. "You're putting me on."

"I beg your pardon."

"Do you really write historical naval books?"

"Of course," he said innocently. "Why should I lie?"

"Incredible," murmured Heidi. "I do too, but I've yet to be published."

"I say, that is incredible," Shaw said, doing his best to appear properly amazed. Then he groped for her hand, found it and gave a light pressure. "When must you return to your ship?" He could feel her tremble slightly. "There's no rush."

He glanced at a large green sign with white letters as it flashed past. "Have you ever been to Santa Barbara?"

"No," she said in almost a whisper. "But I hear it's beautiful.

In the morning it was Heidi who ordered breakfast from room service. As she poured the coffee, she experienced a glowing warmth of delight. Making love to a stranger only a few hours after meeting him gave her an inner thrill she had not known before. It was a sensation that was peculiar to her.

She could easily recall the men she'd had: the frightened midshipman at Annapolis, her ex-husband, Admiral Walter Bass, Dirk Pitt, and now Shaw…... she could see them all clearly, as if they were lined up for inspection. Only five, hardly enough to make up an army, much less a platoon.

Why is it, she wondered, the older a woman becomes, the more she regrets not having gone to bed with more men. She became annoyed with herself. She had been too careful in her single years, afraid to appear overly eager, never able to bring herself to indulge in a casual affair.

How silly of her, she thought. After all, she often felt she'd had ten times the physical pleasure of any man. Her ecstasy mushroomed from within. Men she knew had felt a sensation that was merely external. They seemed to rely more on imagination and were frequently disappointed afterward. Sex to them was often no different from going to a movie; a woman demands much more…... too much.

"You look pensive this morning," said Shaw. He pulled up her hair and kissed the nape of her neck. "Suffering remorse in the cold light of dawn?"

"More like entranced in fond remembrance."

"When do you sail?"

"Day after tomorrow."

"Then we still have time together."

She shook her head. "I'll be on duty until we cast off."

Shaw walked over and stared through the sliding glass doors of their hotel room overlooking the ocean. He could only see a few hundred feet. The Santa Barbara coastline was covered by a mantle of fog.

"A damned shame," he said wistfully. "We have so much in common."

She came over and slipped her arm around his waist. "What do you have in mind? Making love at night and researching by day?"

He laughed. "Americans and their direct humor. Not a bad idea though. We might very well complement each other. What exactly is it you're writing at the moment?"

"My thesis for a doctorate. The navy under President Wilson's administration."

"Sounds terribly dull."

"It is." Heidi went silent, a thoughtful look in her face. Then she said, "Have you ever heard of the North American Treaty?"

There it was. No coaxing, no intrigue or torture; she simply came out with it.

Shaw did not answer immediately. He chose his reply care fully.

"Yes, I recall running across it."

Heidi looked at him, her mouth half open to speak, but nothing came out.

"You have a strange expression on your face."

"You're familiar with the treaty?" she asked in astonishment. "You've actually seen references to it?"

"I've never actually read the wording. Fact is I've forgotten its purpose. It was of little consequence as I remember. You can find material relating to it in most any archive in London." Shaw had kept his tone nonchalant. He calmly lit a cigarette. "Is the treaty part of your research project?"

"No," Heidi answered. "By chance I stumbled on a brief mention. I pursued it out of curiosity, but turned up nothing that proved it ever truly existed."

"I'll be happy to make a copy and send it to you."

"Don't bother. Just knowing it wasn't a figment of my imagination is enough to soothe my inquisitive soul. Besides, I turned my notes over to a friend in Washington."

"I'll send them to her."

"She's a he."

"All right, he," he said, trying to mute the impatience in his voice. "What's his name and address?"

"Dirk Pitt. You can reach him at the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

Shaw had what he came for. A dedicated agent would have whisked Heidi back to her ship and rushed aboard the first flight to Washington.

Shaw had never considered himself dedicated in the gung ho sense. There were times it did not pay, and this was one of them. He kissed Heidi hard on the mouth. "So much for research. Now let's go back to bed." And they did.

An early afternoon breeze blew steadily out of the northeast. A cold breeze full of little needles that jabbed exposed skin into numbness. The temperature was three degrees Celsius, but to Pitt, as he stood looking out over the waters of the St. Lawrence River, the wind chill factor made it feel closer to minus ten.

He inhaled the smells of the docks jutting into the little bay a few miles from the Quebec Province city of Rimouski, his nostrils sifting out the distinct tangs of tar, rust and diesel oil. He walked along the aging planks until he came to a gangway that led down to a boat resting comfortably in the oily water. The designer had given it no-nonsense lines, about fifteen meters, spacious flush decks, twin screw and diesel engines. There was no attempt at flashy chrome; the hull was painted black. It was built to be functional, ideal for fishing trips, diving excursions or oil surveys. The topside was squared away and spotless, the sure signs of an affectionate owner.

A man emerged from the wheelhouse. He wore a stocking cap that failed to restrain a thicket of coarse black hair. The face looked as though it had been battered by a hundred storms, but the eyes were sad and watchful as Pitt hesitated before stepping onto the afterdeck.

"My name is Dirk Pitt. I'm looking for Jules Le Mat."

There was a slight pause, and then strong white teeth flashed like a theater marquee in a hearty smile. "Welcome, Monsieur Pitt. Please come aboard."

"She's a smart boat."

"No beauty, maybe, but like a good wife it's sturdy and loyal." The hand clasp was like a vise. "You've picked a fine day for your visit. The St. Lawrence is cooperating. No fog and only a mild chop over deep water. If you'll give me a hand and cast off, we can get under way."

Le Mat went below and started the diesels as Pitt unwrapped the bow and stern lines from the dock cleats and coiled them on the deck. The green water of the bay slid past the hull almost unwrinkled and slowly altered to an unruly blue as they entered the mainstream of the river. Twenty-eight miles away, the rising hills on the opposite shore were painted white by the winter snows. They passed a fishing boat heading toward the docks with a week's catch, its skipper waving in reply to Le Mat's squawk on the boat's horn. Astern, the spires of Rimouski's picturesque cathedrals stood out in sharp detail under the March sun.

The icy breeze increased its bite as they left the shelter of the land and Pitt ducked into the saloon.

"A cup of tea?" inquired Le Mat.

"Sounds good," said Pitt, smiling.

"The pot is in the galley." Le Mat spoke without turning, his hands loosely gripped on the wheel, his gaze straight ahead. "Please help yourself. I have to keep a sharp eye for ice floes. They're thicker than flies on manure this time of year."

Pitt poured a steaming cup. He sat on a high swivel chair and looked out at the river. Le Mat was right. The water was littered with ice floes about the same size as the boat.

"What was it like the night the Empress of Ireland went down?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"Clear skies," Le Mat answered. "The river was calm, its waters a few degrees above freezing, no wind to speak of. A few patches of fog, common in the spring when the southern warm air meets the cold river."

"The Empress was a good ship?"

"One of the best." Le Mat replied seriously to what he considered a naive question. "Built to the finest standards of the day for her owners, the Canadian Pacific Railway. She and her sister ship, the Empress of Britain, were handsome liners, fourteen thousand, tons and five hundred and fifty feet long. Their accommodations were not as elegant, perhaps, as those on the Olympic or the Mauritania, but they achieved a solid reputation for providing their passengers with a comfortable sort of luxury on the Atlantic crossing."

"As I recall, the Empress departed Quebec bound for Liverpool on its final voyage."

"Cast the mooring lines close to four thirty in the afternoon. Nine hours later she lay on the river bottom, her starboard side stove in. It was the fog that wrote the ship's epitaph."

"And a coal collier called the Storstad." Le Mat smiled. "You've done your homework, Mr. Pitt. The mystery was never completely laid to rest how the Empress and the Storstad collided. Their crews sighted each other eight miles apart. When they were separated by less than two miles a low fog bank drifted across their path. Captain Kendall, master of the Empress, reversed his engines and-stopped the ship. It was a mistake; he should have kept underway. The men in the wheelhouse on the Storstad became confused when the Empress vanished in the mists. They thought the liner was approaching off their port bow when indeed, it was drifting with engines stopped to their starboard. The Storstad's first mate ordered the wheel to the right and the Empress of Ireland and her passengers were condemned to disaster."

Le Mat paused to point at an ice floe nearly an acre in size. "We had an unseasonably cold winter this year. The river is still frozen solid a hundred and fifty miles upstream."

Pitt kept silent, slowly sipping the tea.

"The six- thousand-ton Storstad," Le Mat continued, "laden with eleven thousand tons of coal, cut into the Empress amidships, slicing a gaping wound twenty-four feet high and fifteen feet wide. Within fourteen minutes the Empress fell to the bed of the St. Lawrence, taking over a thousand souls with her."

"Strange how quickly the ship vanished into the past," Pitt said pensively.

"Yes, you ask anyone from the States or Europe about the Empress and they'll tell you they never heard of her. It's almost a crime the way the ship was forgotten."

"You haven't forgotten her."

"Nor has Quebec Province," said Le Mat, pointing toward the east. "Just behind Pointe au POre, "Father's Point in English, lie eighty-eight unidentified victims of the tragedy in a little cemetery still maintained by the Canadian Pacific Railroad." A look of great sorrow came on Le Mat's face. He spoke of the terrible mathematics of the dead as though the sinking had happened yesterday. "The Salvation Army remembers. Out of a hundred and seventy-one who were going to London for a convention, only twenty-six survived. They hold a memorial service for their dead at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto on the anniversary of the sinking."

"I'm told you've made the Empress a life's work."

"I have a deep passion for the Empress. It's like a great love that overwhelms some men in seeing the painting of a woman who died long before they were born."

"I lean more on flesh than fantasy," said Pitt.

"Sometimes fantasy is more rewarding," Le Mat replied, a dreamlike expression on his face. Suddenly he came alert and spun the wheel to avert an ice floe that loomed in the path of the boat. "Between June and September, when the weather warms, I dive on the wreck twenty, maybe thirty times."

"What is the condition of the Empress?"

"A fair amount of disintegration. Though not as bad as you might think after seventy-five years of submersion. I think it's because the fresh water from the river dilutes the salinity from the eastern sea. The hull lies on its starboard side at a list of forty-five degrees. Some of the overhead bulkheads have fallen in on the upper superstructure, but the rest of the ship is pretty much intact.

"Its depth?"

"About a hundred and sixty-five feet. A bit deep for diving on compressed air, but I manage it." Le Mat closed the throttles and shut down the engines, allowing the boat to drift in the current. Then he turned and faced Pitt. "Tell me, Mr. Pitt, what is your interest in the Empress? Why did you seek me out?"

"I'm searching for information on a passenger by the name of Harvey Shields, who was lost with the ship. I was told that no one knows more about the Empress than Jules Le Mat."

Le Mat considered Pitt's reply for some time, then said: "Yes, I recall a Harvey Shields was one of the victims. There is no mention of him during the sinking by survivors. I must assume he was one of nearly seven hundred who still lie entombed within the rotting hulk."

"Perhaps he was found but never identified, like those buried in Father's Point cemetery."

Le Mat shook his head. "Mostly third-class passengers. Shields was a British diplomat, an important man. His body would have been recognized."

Pitt set aside the teacup. "Then my search ends here."

"No, Mr. Pitt," said Le Mat, "not here." Pitt looked at him, saying nothing. "Down there," Le Mat went on, nodding toward the deck. "The Empress of Ireland lies beneath us." He pointed out a cabin window. "There floats her marker."

Fifty feet off the port side of the boat an orange buoy rose and fell gently on the icy river, its line stretching through the dark waters to the silent wreck below.

Pitt swung his rented minicar off the state thruway and entered a narrow paved road adjoining the Hudson River shortly after sunset. He passed a stone marker designating a Revolutionary War site and was tempted to stop and stretch his legs, but decided to press on to his destination before it became dark. The scenic river was beautiful in the fading light, the fields that dipped to the water's edge glistened under a late winter snowfall.

He stopped for gas at a small station below the town of Coxsackie. The attendant, an elderly man in faded coveralls, stayed inside the office, his feet propped on a metal stool in front of a wood burning stove. Pitt filled the tank and entered. The attendant peered around him at the pump. "Looks like twenty dollars even," he said.

Pitt handed him the cash. "How much further to Wacketshire?"

His eyes squinted in suspicion as they studied Pitt like probes. "Wacketshire? It ain't been called that in years. Fact of the matter is, the town don't exist no more."

"A ghost town in upstate New York? I'd have thought the southwest desert a more likely place."

"No joke, mister. When the railroad line was torn up back in '49, Wacketshire gave up and died. Most of the buildings were burned down by vandals. Nobody lives there anymore except some fella who makes statues."

"Is anything left of the old track bed?" Pitt asked.

"Most of it's gone," said the old man, his expression turning wistful. "Damned shame, too." Then he shrugged. "At least we didn't have to see them smelly diesels come through here. The last train over the old line was pulled by steam."

"Perhaps steam will return someday."

"I'll never live to see it." The attendant looked at Pitt with growing respect. "How come you're interested in a deserted railroad?"

"I'm a train nut," Pitt lied without hesitation. He seemed to be getting quite good at it lately. "My special interest is the classic trains. At the moment I'm researching the Manhattan Limited of the New York Quebec Northern system."

"That's the one that fell through the Deauville Bridge. Killed a hundred people, you know."

"Yes," Pitt said evenly, "I know."

The old man turned and gazed out the window. "The Manhattan Limited is special," he said. "You can always tell when it comes down the line. It has a sound all its own."

Pitt wasn't sure he heard right. The attendant was speaking in the present tense. "You must be talking about a different train."

"No, sir. I've watched the old Manhattan Limited come hootin' and clankin' down the track, whistle a-blowin', headlight a-glowin', just like it did the night it went in the river."

The old- timer spoke of seeing the phantom train as nonchalantly as if he were describing the weather.

It was dusk when Pitt stopped his car at a small turnout in the road. A cold wind was rolling in from the north, and he zipped an old leather driving jacket to his neck and turned up the collar. He slipped a knit ski cap over his head and stepped out of the car, locking the doors.

The colors in the western sky were altering from orange to a blue-purple as he trudged across a frozen field toward the river, his boots crunching on a four-inch layer of snow. He realized that he had forgotten his gloves, but rather than return to the car and lose minutes of the ebbing daylight, he jammed his hands deeper in his pockets.

After a quarter of a mile he reached a belt of hickory trees and low shrubs. He picked his way around the frozen branches, which sprouted strange growths of ice crystals, and came to a high embankment. The slopes were steep and he had to use his hands to claw his way up the wind-glazed slippery surface to the top.

At last, his fingers frozen numb, he stood on the long abandoned track bed. It was badly eroded in places and covered by tangles of dead and ice-stiffened weeds protruding from the snow. The once busy railroad was only a distant memory.

In the dimming light Pitt's eyes picked out the telltale relics of the past. A few rotting crossties half buried in the ground, an occasional rusty spike, scattered rock from the track ballast. The telegraph poles still stood, stretching off into infinity like a line of straggling, battle-weary soldiers. Their weathered crossbeams were still bolted in place.

Pitt took his bearings and began trudging along a slight curve that led up the grade to the empty bridge crossing. The air was sharp and tingled his nostrils. His breath formed shapeless mists that quickly vanished. A rabbit darted in front of him and leaped down the embankment.

Dusk had deepened to night. He no longer cast a shadow when he stopped and stared down at the icy river 150 feet below. The stone abutment of the Deltuville-Hudson bridge seemed to lead to nowhere.

Two solitary piers rose like forlorn sentinels from the water that swirled around their base. There was no sign of the 500-foot truss they had once supported. The bridge had never been rebuilt; the main track was constructed further south to cross over a newer and stronger suspension span.

Pitt knelt on his haunches for a long while trying to visualize that fateful night, almost seeing the red lights on the last coach grow smaller as the train rolled onto the great center truss, hearing the shriek of tortured metal, the great splash in the uncaring river.

His reverie was interrupted by another sound, a high-pitched wailing in the distance.

He rose to his feet and listened. For a few moments all he could hear was the whisper of the wind. Then it came again from somewhere to the north, echoing and reechoing off the forbidding cliffs along the Hudson, the naked limbs of the trees, the darkened hills of the valley.

It was a train whistle.

He saw a faint, swelling yellow glow moving steadily toward him. Soon other sounds touched his ears, a grinding clatter and the hissing of steam. Unseen birds, startled by the sudden noise, flapped into the black sky.

Pitt could not bring himself to believe the reality of what he apparently saw; it was impossible for a train to be speeding over the nonexistent rails of the forsaken track bed. He stood unfeeling of the cold, searching for an explanation, his mind refusing to accept his senses, but the scream of the whistle grew louder and the light brighter.

For maybe ten seconds, maybe twenty, Pitt stood as frozen as the trees bordering the track bed. The adrenaline surged through his bloodstream, and the floodgates of fear burst open and swept away all established thoughts of logic. He began to lose reality as fingers of panic tightened around his stomach.

The shrill whistle shattered the night again as the horror laid into the curve and pulled up the grade to the missing bridge, the headlamp transfixing him in a blinding glare.

Pitt never remembered how long he watched petrified at what deep down he knew to be a superstitious apparition. Faintly the cry of self-preservation broke through and he looked around for a way to flee. The narrow sides of the abutment dropped off in the blackness; behind him was the sheer drop to the river. He felt trapped on the brink of a void.

The ghostly locomotive was lunging closer with a vengeance, the clang of its bell audible now above the roar of the exhaust.

Then suddenly anger replaced the fear in Pitt, an anger that stemmed partly from his own helplessness, partly from his slowness to act. The moment it took him to make a decision seemed a lifetime. Only one practical direction was open to him and he grabbed it.

Like a sprinter off the mark at the starter's gun, he charged down the grade on a collision course with the unknown.

The blazing light abruptly blinked out and the clamor melted into the night.

Pitt stopped and stood stock-still, swept by incomprehension, straining to readjust his eyes to the darkness. He cocked his head, listening. No sound was to be heard except the, whisper of the north wind again. He became aware of the burning cold on his exposed hands and the pounding of his heart.

Two full minutes passed, and nothing happened. He began jogging slowly along the barren track bed, halting every few yards and studying the carpet of snow. Except for his footprints heading in the opposite direction, the white was unmarred.

Confusion in his gut, he continued for half a mile, stalking warily, half expecting but somehow doubtful of finding a trace of the mechanical specter. Nothing struck his eye. It was as it the train had never been.

He stumbled over a rigid object in his path, sprawling awkwardly on a wind-scoured patch of gravel. Cursing his clumsiness, he groped around in a circle, his fingers coming in contact with two parallel ribbons of cold metal.

My God, they're rails.

He jerked to his feet and pushed on. After rounding a sharp bend, he saw the blue glow of a television set through the windows of a house. The rails appeared to run past the front porch.

A dog barked from within the house and soon a square of light spread through an opened door. Pitt merged into the shadows. A huge, shaggy sheep dog jumped down on the crossties, sniffed the frigid air, and not wishing to linger, hoisted his hind leg and did his thing before tearing back into the comfort of a fireplace-warm living room. Then the door closed.

As Pitt came closer he distinguished a great black hulk parked on a sidetrack. It proved to be a locomotive with a stoker car and caboose attached behind. Cautiously he climbed into the cab and touched the firebox. The metal was ice cold. Rust came away in his hands-the boilers had not been lit for a long time.

He crossed over the tracks to the house and knocked on the front door.

The dog dutifully rasped out a series of barks and soon a man in a rumpled bathrobe stood on the threshold. The light was at his back and his facial features were shadowed. He was almost as wide as the doorway and carried his weight like a wrestler. "Can I help you?" he asked in a bottom-of-the-barrel voice.

"I'm sorry to trouble you," replied Pitt with a down-home smile, "but I wonder if I might have a word with you?"

The man gave Pitt a chilly once-over and then nodded. "Sure, come on in."

"My name is Pitt, Dirk Pitt."

"Ansel Magee."

The name struck a chord with Pitt but before he could tie it down, Magee turned and bellowed, "Annie, we got a visitor."

A woman came out of the kitchen. She carried herself languidly and stood tall. Her shape was pencil thin, the exact opposite of Magee. Pitt guessed she'd been a fashion model at one time. Her hair was salt and pepper and gracefully styled. She wore a tight-fitting red housecoat with a matching apron, and she held a dishtowel in one hand.

"My wife Annie." Magee made the appropriate gestures with his hand. "This is Mr. Pitt."

"How do you do?" Annie said warmly. "You look like you could use a cup of coffee."

"I'd love one," said Pitt. "Black, thank you."

Her eyes widened. "Did you know your hands were bleeding?"

Pitt looked at the skin abrasions on his palms. "I must have scraped them when I tripped over the rails outside. They're so numb from the cold I didn't notice."

"You just sit down here by the fire," said Annie, guiding him to a circular sofa. "I'll get them fixed up for you." She hurried into the kitchen and filled a bowl with warm water. Then she went to the bathroom for the antiseptic.

"I'll get the coffee," Magee volunteered.

The sheep dog stayed and stared blankly at Pitt. At least he thought the dog was staring at him. Its eyes were curtained by thick tufts of hair.

He regarded the interior of the living room. The furniture appeared to be individually designed along contemporary lines. Each piece, including the lamps and numerous art objects, was elegantly contoured in poly resin and painted either red or white. The room was a livable art gallery. Magee returned with a cup of steaming coffee.

In the light Pitt identified the kindly, elf like face. "You're Ansel Magee, the sculptor."

"I'm afraid there are certain art critics who would disagree with that label." Magee laughed good-naturedly.

"You're modest," said Pitt. "I once stood in a block-long line waiting to view your exhibit at the National Art Gallery in Washington."

"Are you a modern-art connoisseur, Mr. Pitt?"

"I'd hardly qualify even as a dilettante. Actually, my love affair is with antique machinery. I collect old cars and airplanes." That part was true. "I also have a passion for steam locomotives." That part was another lie.

"Then we have a common meeting ground," said Magee. "I'm an old train buff myself." He reached over and turned off the television. "I noticed your private railroad."

"An Atlantic type four-four-two," Magee said as if reciting. "Rolled out of the Baldwin Works in nineteen oh-six. Pulled the Overland Limited from Chicago to Council Bluffs, Iowa. It was quite a speedster in its day."

"When was the last time it was operated?" Pitt sensed immediately that he'd used the wrong terminology by the sour expression on Magee's face.

"I stoked it up two summers ago after I laid in about a half mile of track. Ran the neighbors and their kids back and forth on my private line. Gave it up after my last heart attack. It's sat idle ever since."

Annie returned and began bathing his cuts. "Sorry, but all I could find was an old bottle of iodine. It'll sting."

She was wrong: Pitt's hands still hat no feeling. He watched silently while she tied the bandages. Then she sat back and appraised her handiwork.

"Won't win a medical award, but I guess it will do until you get home."

"It will do just fine," Pitt said.

Magee settled into a tulip-shaped chair. "Now then, Mr. Pitt. What's on your mind?"

Pitt came right to the point. "I'm accumulating data on the Manhattan Limited."

"I see," said Magee, but it was plain he didn't. "I assume your interest lies more in the nature of its last run rather than its track history."

"Yes," Pitt admitted. "There are several aspects of the disaster that have never been explained in depth. I've gone over the old newspaper accounts, but they raise more questions than they answer."

Magee eyed him suspiciously. "Are you a reporter?" Pitt shook his head. "I'm special projects director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

"You're with the government?"

"Uncle Sam pays my wages, yes. But my curiosity concerning the Deauville-Hudson bridge disaster is purely personal."

"Curiosity? More like obsession, I'd say. What else would drive a man to wander about the countryside in freezing weather and in the dead of night?"

"I'm on a tight schedule," Pitt explained patiently. "I must be in Washington by tomorrow morning. This was my only chance to view the bridge site. Besides, it was still daylight when I arrived."

Magee seemed to relax. "My apologies for forcing an inquisition on you, Mr. Pitt, but you're the only stranger who's stumbled onto my little hideaway. Except for a few select friends and business associates, the public thinks I'm some sort of weird recluse feverishly pouring molds in a rundown warehouse on New York's east side. A sham contrived for a purpose. I value my seclusion. If I had to contend with a constant stream of gawkers, critics and newspeople pounding at my door all day, I would never get any work done. Here, hidden away in the Hudson valley, I can create without hassle."

"More coffee?" asked Annie. With feminine astuteness she had picked the opportune time to interrupt.

"Please," replied Pitt.

"How about some hot apple pie?"

"Sounds great. I haven't eaten since breakfast."

"Let me make you something, then."

"No, no, the pie will be fine."

As soon as she left, Magee continued the conversation. "I hope you understand what I'm driving at, Mr. Pitt."

"I have no reason to sell out your privacy," said Pitt.

"I shall trust you not to."

Feeling was beginning to return to Pitt's hands and they ached like hell. Annie Magee brought him the apple pie and he attacked it with the ravenousness of a farmhand.

"Your fascination with trains," Pitt said between bites. "Living practically on top of the bridge site, you must have an insight on the disaster that can't be found in old files."

Magee stared into the fire a long moment, then began speaking in a vacant tone. "You're right, of course. I have studied the strange incidents surrounding the wreck of the Manhattan Limited. Dug into local legends, mostly. I was lucky and interviewed Sam Harding, the station agent who was on duty the night it happened, a few months before he died at a rest home in Germantown. Eighty-eight he was. Had a memory like a computer bank. God, it was like talking with history. I could almost see the events of that fatal night unfold in front of my eyes."

"A holdup at the exact moment the train came through," said Pitt. "The robber refusing to let the station agent flag the engineer and save a hundred lives. It reads like fiction."

"No fiction, Mr. Pitt. It occurred just the way Harding described it to the police and newspaper reporters. The telegrapher, Hiram Meechum, had a bullet hole in his hip as proof."

"I'm familiar with the account." Pitt nodded.

"Then you know the robber was never caught. Harding and Meechum positively identified him as Clement Massey, or Dapper Doyle as he was called in the press. A natty dresser who had pulled off some pretty ingenious heists."

"Odd that the ground split and swallowed him."

"Times were different before the war to end all wars. The law authorities weren't nearly as sophisticated as they are now. Doyle was no moron. A few years behind bars for robbery is one thing. Indirectly causing the deaths of a hundred men, women and children is quite another. If he had been caught, a jury would have taken all of five minutes to send him to the gallows."

Pitt finished off the pie and leaned back in the sofa. "Any guesses as to why the train was never recovered?"

Magee shook his head. "Supposedly it sank in quicksand. Local scuba-diving clubs still search for artifacts. A few years ago an old locomotive headlamp was pulled from the river a mile downstream. Folks generally assumed that it came from the Manhattan Limited. I feel it is only a matter of time before the riverbed shifts and reveals the wreckage."

"More pie, Mr. Pitt?" asked Annie Magee.

"I'm tempted, but no, thank you," said Pitt, rising. "I'd best be leaving. I have a plane to catch at Kennedy in a few hours. I'm grateful for your hospitality."

"Before you go," said Magee, "I'd like to show you something."

The sculptor pushed himself from the chair and walked over to a door set in the middle of the far wall. He opened it to a darkened room and disappeared inside. He reappeared a few moments later, holding a flickering kerosene lamp.

"This way," he said, motioning.

Pitt entered, his nose sorting out the musty smells of aged wood and leather from the kerosene vapor, his eyes scanning the shadows that quivered under the soft flame of the lamp. He recognized the interior as an office furnished with antiques. A potbellied stove squatted in the middle of the floor, its flue sprouting straight through the roof. The orange glow revealed a safe backed into a corner, its door decorated with the painting of a covered wagon crossing the prairie.

Two desks sat against a wall of windows. One was a rolltop with an old-fashioned telephone perched on its surface, the other was long and flat and supported a large cabinet filled with pigeonholes. On the edge, in front of a leather-cushioned tilt back chair, there was a telegraph key whose wires angled up and through the ceiling.

The walls held a Seth Thomas clock, a poster touting the Parker and Schmidt traveling amusement show, a framed picture of an overripe girl holding a tray stacked with bottles of beer advertising the Ruppert Brewery on 94th Street in New York City, and a Feeney Company insurance calendar dated May 1914.

"Sam Harding's office," Magee said proudly. "I've recreated it exactly as it was on the night of the robbery."

"Then your house…..."

"Is the original Wacketshire station," Magee finished. "The farmer I bought the property from used it to store feed for his cows. Annie and I restored the building. A pity you haven't seen it in daylight. The architecture has a distinctive design. Ornate trimmings around the roof, graceful curves. Dates back to the eighteen eighties."

"You've done a remarkable job of preservation," Pitt complimented him.

"Yes, it's been given a better fate than most old railroad stations," said Magee. "We made a few changes. What used to be the freight area is now bedrooms, and our living room is the former waiting room."

"The furnishings, are they original?" Pitt asked, touching the telegraph key.

"For the most part. Harding's desk was here when we bought the place. The stove was salvaged from a trash pile, and Annie rescued the safe from a hardware store in Selkirk. The real prize, though, was this."

Magee lifted a leather dust cover revealing a chessboard. The hand-carved ebony and birch pieces were cracked and worn by the years. "Hiram Meechum's chess set," explained Magee. "His widow gave it to me. The bullet hole from Massey's pistol was never patched."

Pitt studied the board for a few moments in silence. Then he looked out the windows at the blackness. "You can almost sense their presence," he said finally.

"I often sit alone here in the office and try to visualize that fateful night.

"Do you see the Manhattan Limited as it roars past?"

"Sometimes," Magee said dreamily. "If my imagination flows freely." He stopped and stared at Pitt suspiciously. "A strange question. Why do you ask?"

"The phantom train," answered Pitt. "They say it still makes its spectral run over the old track bed."

"The Hudson valley is a breeding ground for myths," Magee scoffed. "There are those who even claim to have seen the headless horseman, for God's sake. What starts as a tall tale becomes a rumor. Embellished with age and exaggerated by local folklore, the rumor turns into a full-blown legend bending the outer fringe of reality. The phantom train hauntings began a few years after the bridge failure. Like a ghost of a guillotined man who wanders about searching for his head, the Manhattan Limited, so its disciples believe, will never enter that great depot in the sky until it finally crosses over the river."

Pitt laughed. "Mr. Magee, you are a card-carrying skeptic."

"I won't deny it."

Pitt looked at his watch. "I really must be on my way."

Magee showed him outside and they shook hands on the old station platform.

"I've had a fascinating evening," said Pitt. "I'm grateful to you and your wife for your hospitality."

"Our pleasure. Please come back and visit us. I love to talk trains."

Pitt hesitated. "There is one thing you might keep in mind."

"What's that?"

"A funny thing about legends," Pitt said, searching Magee's eyes. "They're usually born from a truth."

In the light from the house, the kindly face was somber and thoughtful, no more. Then Magee shrugged noncommittally and closed the door.

Danielle Sarveux warmly greeted Premier Jules Guerrier of Quebec Province in the corridor of the hospital. He was accompanied by his secretary and Henri Villon.

Guerrier kissed Danielle lightly on both cheeks. He was in his late seventies, tall and slender with unkept silver hair and thick tangled beard. He could have easily accommodated an artist's conception of Moses. As Premier of Quebec he was also the leader of the French-speaking Parti Quebecois. "How marvelous to see you, Jules," said Danielle.

"Better for old eyes to behold a beautiful woman," he answered gallantly. "Charles is looking forward to seeing you."

"How is he getting along?"

"The doctors say he is doing fine. But the healing process will take a long time."

Sarveux was propped up by pillows, his bed parked beside a large window with a view of the Parliament building. A nurse took their hats and coats, and then they grouped around the bed on a chair and sofa. Danielle poured a round of cognac.

"I'm allowed to serve a drink to my visitors," said Sarveux. "But unfortunately alcohol won't mix with my medication so I can't join you."

"To your speedy recovery," toasted Guerrier.

"A speedy recovery," the others responded.

Guerrier set his glass on an end table. "I'm honored that you asked to see me, Charles."

Sarveux looked at him seriously. "I've just been informed you're calling a referendum for total independence."

Guerrier gave a Gallic shrug. "The time is long overdue for a final break from the confederation."

"I agree, and I intend to give it my full endorsement."

Sarveux's statement fell like a guillotine blade.

Guerrier visibly tensed. "You'll not fight it this time?"

"No, I want to see it done and over with."

"I've known you too long, Charles, not to suspect an ulterior motive behind your sudden benevolence."

"You misread me, Jules. I'm not rolling over like a trained dog. If Quebec wants to go it alone, then let it be. Your referendums, your mandates, your incessant negotiations. That's in the past. Canada has suffered enough. The confederation no longer needs Quebec. We will survive without you."

"And we without you."

Sarveux smiled sardonically. "We'll see how you do starting from scratch."

"We expect to do just that," said Guerrier. "Quebec Parliament will be closed and a new government installed. One patterned after the French republic. We will write our own laws, collect our own taxes, and establish formal relations with foreign powers. Naturally, we'll maintain a common currency and other economic ties with the English-speaking provinces."

"You'll not get your cake and eat it too," said Sarveux, his voice hard. "Quebec must print its own money, and any trade agreements must be renegotiated. Also, customs inspection stations will be erected along our common borders. All Canadian institutions and government offices will be withdrawn from Quebec sod."

A look of anger crossed Guerrier's face. "Those are harsh actions."

"Once Quebeckers have turned their backs on the political freedoms, wealth and future of a united Canada, the severance must be unconditional and complete."

Guerrier got to his feet slowly. "I would have hoped for more compassion from a fellow Frenchman."

"My fellow Frenchmen murdered fifty innocent people in an attempt to assassinate me. Consider yourself lucky, Jules, that I don't lay the blame on the doorstep of the Parti quebecois. The outrage and whiplash would cause irreparable damage to your cause."

"You have my solemn word, the Parti quebecois played no part in the plane crash."

"What about the terrorists of the FQS?"

"I have never condoned the actions of the FQS," Guerrier said defensively. There lip service. You've done nothing to stop them."

"They're like ghosts," Guerrier protested. "No one even knows who their leader is."

"What happens after independence and he comes out in the open?"

"When Quebec becomes free the FQS no longer has a reason to exist. He and his organization can only wither away and die."

"You forget, Jules, terrorist movements have a nasty habit of turning legitimate and forming opposition parties."

"The FQS will not be tolerated by Quebec's new government."

"With you at its head," Sarveux added.

"I should expect so," Guerrier said without a trace of ego. "Who else has the mandate of the people for a glorious new nation?"

"I wish you luck," Sarveux said skeptically. There was no arguing with Guerrier's fervor, he thought. The French were dreamers. They thought only of a return to romantic times when the fleur-delis waved majestically throughout the world. The noble experiment would be a failure before it began. "As Prime Minister I will not stand in your way. But I warn you, Jules, no radical upheavals or political unrest that will affect the rest of Canada."

"I assure you, Charles," Guerrier said confidently, "the birth will be peaceful."

It was to prove an empty promise.

Villon was furious; Danielle knew all the signs. He came and sat beside her on a bench outside the hospital. She shivered silently in the cool spring air, waiting for the eruption she knew would come.

"The bastard!" he finally growled. "The underhanded bastard gave Quebec to Guerrier without a fight."

"I still can't believe it," she said.

"You knew, you must have known what Charles had in the back of his mind."

"He said nothing, gave me no indication-"

"Why?" he interrupted her, his face flushed with rage. "Why did he make an abrupt about-face on his stand for a united font."

Danielle turned silent. She had an instinctive fear of his anger.

"He's pulled the rug from under us before we could build a strong base. When my partners in the Kremlin learn of it, they'll withdraw their commitments."

"What can Charles possibly gain? Politically, he's committing suicide."

"He's playing the canny fox," said Villon, coming back on keel. "With a senile old fool like Guerrier at the helm, Quebec will be little more than a puppet regime to Ottawa, begging for handouts, long-term loans and trade credits. Quebec will be worse off as a nation than as a province."

She looked at him, her expression turning hard. "It doesn't have to be that way."

"What are you saying?"

She clutched his arm. "Bury the FQS. Come out in the open and campaign against Guerrier."

"I'm not strong enough to take on Jules."

"The French desperately need a younger, aggressive leader," she persisted. "The Henri Villon I know would never bow to English Canada or the United States."

"Your husband cut me off in midstep. Without the time to build a proper organization it would be impossible."

"Not if Jules Guerrier dropped dead."

For the first time Villon laughed. "Not likely. Jules may have every malady in the medical books, but he has the fortitude to outlive us all."

A curious intensity showed in Danielle's face. "Jules must die to save Quebec."

The inference was crystal. VilloA turned inward to his thoughts and did not speak for nearly a minute.

"Killing the others was different, they were strangers. Their deaths were political necessity. Jules is a loyal Frenchman. He has fought the fight longer than any of us."

"For what we stand to gain, the price is small."

"The price is never small," he said, like a man immersed in a dream. "Lately, I find myself wondering who will be the last man to die before it's all over."

Gly leaned over the stained washbasin toward the mirror and rearranged his face.

He placed a prosthesis made from white foam rubber latex over his battered nose, lengthening the tip and raising the bridge. The false addition was kept in place by spirit gum and tinted with a special makeup for coating rubber. His reshaped beak was dusted with a bit of translucent powder to remove the shine.

His original eyebrows had been plucked out. He peeled away their replacements and began attaching crepe hair with the spirit gum, dabbing the tiny tufts in place with tweezers. The new brows were arched higher and thickened to a bushier look.

He paused and stood back a few moments, comparing his handiwork with the photographs taped to the lower edge of the mirror. Satisfied with his progress, he took a highlight makeup a few shades darker than white and drew it from a point on the chin along the jawline to a point under each ear. Next, a low light earth tone was blended under the chin. The finished artistry gave his oval jaw more of a squared, chiseled appearance.

He realigned his mouth by covering it with a base makeup and then brushing a line under the lower lip with a matching colored lipstick so that it seemed fatter and more protruding.

The contact lenses followed. This was the only part he detested. Changing the color of his eyes from brown to gray was like changing his soul. He could no longer distinguish Foss Gly under the disguise after the lenses went in.

The final touch was the brown wig. He lowered it over his nude head with both hands as though it was a crown.

At last, he stood back and scrutinized full face and profiles while holding a small lamp at different lighting angles. It was near perfect, he judged, as near perfect as possible, considering the primitive conditions in the dingy bathroom of the fleabag hotel where he was registered.

The night clerk was not at the desk when he passed through the lobby. Two side streets and an alley later, he sat behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz sedan. He had stolen it from the parking lot of a bank earlier that afternoon and switched the license plates.

He drove through the old section of Quebec City called Lower Town, hugging the curbing of the quaint narrow streets and honking at the occasional pedestrian, who gave way only after fixing Gly with a belligerent stare.

It was a few minutes past nine and the lights of Quebec sparkled on the ice lingering over the St. Lawrence. Gly passed below the famed Chateau Frontenac hotel and swung onto the expressway bordering the river. The traffic moved along rapidly and soon he was abreast of the Battlefields Park on the Plains of Abraham where the British army triumphed over the French in 1759 and gained Canada for the empire.

He turned off into the fashionable suburban community of Sillery. Great stone houses sat ageless and fortlike, protecting the wealthy and social celebrities of the province. Gly could not identify with such security. To him the houses looked like monstrous crypts inhabited by people who did not know they were dead.

He stopped at a heavy iron gate and identified himself to a speaker. There was no reply. The gate swung open and he drove up a circular drive to an imposing granite mansion surrounded by several acres of lawn. He parked the car under the front portal and rang the door chime. Premier Jules Guerrier's chauffeur-bodyguard bowed Gly into the foyer.

"Good evening, Monsieur Villon, this is an unexpected pleasure."

Gly was pleased. His facial alteration had passed its first test. "I was visiting friends in Quebec and thought I would drop by and pay my respects to Monsieur Guerrier. I'm told he isn't feeling well."

"A bout with the flu," said the chauffeur, taking Gly's coat. The worst is over. His temperature has dropped, but it will be a while before he can get back in harness again."

"If he's not up to a late visit perhaps I should run along and call tomorrow."

"No please. The premier is watching television. I knovo he'll be glad to see you. I'll take you up to his room."

Gly waved him off. "Don't bother. I know the way."

He went up the vast circular staircase to the second floor. At the top he paused to orient himself. He had memorized the plans for the entire house, fixed every exit in his mind as a precaution for hurried escape. Guerrier's bedroom, he knew, was the third door on the right. He entered quietly without knocking.

Jules Guerrier was slouched in a large overstuffed chair, slippered feet propped on an ottoman, peering at a television set. He was wearing a silk paisley robe thrown carelessly over his pajamas. He didn't notice Gly's intrusion; his back was to the door.

Gly moved silently across the carpet to the bed. He picked up a large pillow and approached Guerrier from behind. He started to lower the pillow over Guerrier's face, but he hesitated.

He must see me, Gly thought. His ego needed to be pacified. He had to prove to himself again that he could indeed become Henri Villon. Guerrier seemed to sense a presence. He turned slowly and his eyes came level with Gly's belt line They trailed up his chest to his face and then they widened, not from fear but from astonishment. "Henri?" I "Yes, Jules."

"You can't be here," Guerrier said dumbly. Gly moved around behind the television set and faced the premier. "But I am here, Jules. I'm right here inside the TV."

And so he was.

An image of Henri Villon filled the center of the screen. He was making an address at the opening of Ottawa's new performing arts center. Danielle Sarveux was seated behind him, and next to her was Villon's wife.

Guerrier was unable to comprehend, to fully conceive what his eyes reflected to the cells of his brain. The broadcast was live. He had no doubt of it. As a formality he had received an invitation and recalled the scheduled events of the ceremony. Villon's speech was set for now. He stared into Gly's face, his jaw slack in shock.

"How?"

Gly did not answer. In the same motion he straddled the chair and pressed the pillow into Guerrier's face. The beginning of a terrified cry became scarcely more than a muffled animal sound. The premier had little strength for the uneven struggle. His hands found Gly's thick wrists and feebly tried to pull them away. His lungs felt as if they ignited into a ball of flame. Just before the final darkness, a great blaze of light burst in his head.

After thirty seconds the hands loosened their grip and fell away, dangling awkwardly over the armrests of the chair. The aging body went limp, but Gly maintained the pressure for another three full minutes.

Finally he turned off the TV set, bent down and listened for a heartbeat. All life functions had ceased. The premier of Quebec was dead.

Swiftly Gly crossed the room and checked the hall outside. It was empty. He returned to Guerrier, removed the pillow and threw it back on the bed. Gently, to keep from causing a tear in the fabric, he removed the robe and laid it over the back of the chair. He was relieved to see that the premier had not wet himself. Next came the slippers. They were casually dropped beside the bed.

Gly felt no disgust, nor even the smallest measure of distaste as he picked up the corpse and placed it on the bed. Then with clinical composure he forced open the mouth and began probing.

The first thing a police pathologist examined if he suspected induced asphyxiation was the victim's tongue. Guerrier had cooperated; his tongue bore no teeth marks.

There were, however, slight indications of bruises inside the mouth. Gly took a small makeup kit from his pocket and selected a soft pinkish grease pencil. He could not make the discolorations disappear completely, but he could blend them in with the surrounding tissue. He also darkened the paleness around the interior of the lips, removing another hint of suffocation.

The eyes stared unseeing, and Gly closed them. He massaged the contorted face until it took on a relaxed, almost peaceful expression. Then he fixed the body in a restful position of sleep and pulled up the bed covers.

A tiny, nagging doubt ticked in the back of his mind as he walked from the bedroom. It was the doubt of a perfectionist who always sensed a detail undone, an indefinable overlooked detail that refused to focus. He was descending the upper flight of stairs when he saw the bodyguard emerge from the pantry carrying a tray with a porcelain teapot.

Gly stopped in midstep. He abruptly realized an oversight that he should have realized before. Guerrier's teeth were too perfect. It dawned on him that they must have been false.

He crouched out of vision of the approaching bodyguard and ran back to the bedroom. Five seconds and he held them in his hand. Where did the old man keep them until morning? He must soak them in a cleaning solution. The bedside table was bare except for a clock. He found a plastic bowl filled with blue liquid on the bathroom counter. There was no time for him to analyze the contents. He dropped in the dentures.

Gly opened the bedroom door just as the bodyguard was reaching for the knob from his side in the hall.

"Oh, Monsieur Villon, I thought you and the premier might like some tea."

Gly nodded over his shoulder toward the lump on the bed. "Jules said he felt tired. I think he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow."

The bodyguard took his word for it. "Would you like a cup before you leave, sir?"

Gly closed the door. "Thank you, no. I must be getting along."

They returned to the foyer together. The bodyguard set down the tray and helped him into his coat. Gly lingered on the threshold, making certain Guerrier's man saw the Mercedes.

He bid a good-night and started the car. The gate opened and he swung onto the deserted street. Eight blocks away he parked at the curb between two large homes. He locked the doors and stomped the ignition key into the ground with his heel. What could be more common than a Mercedes-Benz sitting in a stylish residential district, he figured. People who lived in mansions seldom talked to their neighbors. Each would probably think the car belonged to friends visiting next door. The car would be ignored for days.

Gly was on a bus back to Quebec at ten past ten. The exotic poison he had concocted was still in his pocket. It was a foolproof method of murder, used by the Communist intelligence service. No pathologist could detect its presence in a corpse with certainty.

The decision to use the pillow was a spur-of-the-moment afterthought. It seemed a fitting tool for Gly's fetish for inconformity.

Most murderers followed a pattern, developed a routine modus operandi, preferred a particular weapon. Gly's pattern was that he didn't have one. Every kill was completely different in execution from the last. He left no strings to connect him with the past.

He felt a flush of excitement. He had cleared the first hurdle. One more remained, the trickiest, most sensitive one of them all.

Danielle lay in bed and watched the smoke of her cigarette curl toward the ceiling. She was only dimly aware of the warm little bedroom in the remote cottage outside Ottawa, the gathering darkness of the evening, the firm, smooth body beside her.

She sat up and looked at her watch. The interlude was over, and she felt a regret that it could not go on indefinitely. Responsibility beckoned and she was compelled to reenter reality. "Time for you to go?" he asked, stirring beside her.

She nodded. "I must play the dutiful wife and visit my husband in the hospital."

"I don't envy you. Hospitals are nightmares in white."

"I've become used to it by now."

"How is Charles coming along?"

"The doctors say he can come home in a few weeks."

"Come home to what?" he said contemptuously. "The country is rudderless. If an election were held tomorrow, he would surely be defeated."

"All to our advantage." She rose from the bed and began dressing. "With Jules Guerrier out of the way the timing is perfect for you to resign from the cabinet and publicly announce your candidacy for President of Quebec."

"I'll have to draft my speech carefully. The idea is to come on like a savior. I cannot afford to be cast as a rat jumping a sinking ship."

She came over and sat down beside him. The faint smell of his maleness aroused her again. She placed a hand on his chest and could feel his heartbeat.

"You were not the same man this afternoon, Henri." His face seemed to take on a concerned look. "How so?"

"You were more brutal in your lovemaking. Almost cruel."

"I thought you'd enjoy the change."

"I did." She smiled and kissed him. "You even felt different inside me."

"I can't imagine why," he said casually.

"Neither can I, but I loved it."

Reluctantly she pushed herself away and stood up. She put on her coat and gloves. He lay there, watching her.

She paused and looked down, giving him a penetrating look. "You never told me how you arranged to make Jules Guerrier's death appear natural."

A chilling expression came into his eyes. "There are some things you are better off not knowing."

She looked as though she'd been slapped in the face. "We never had secrets between us before."

"We do now," he said impassively.

She did not know how to react to his sudden coldness. She had never seen him like this and it stunned her. "You sound angry. Is it something I've said?"

He glanced at her uninterestedly and shrugged. "I expected more from you, Danielle."

"More?"

"You've told me nothing about Charles that I can't read in a newspaper."

She looked at him questioningly. "What do you want to know?"

"The man's inner thoughts. Conversations with other cabinet ministers. How does he intend to deal with Quebec after the separation? Is he thinking of resigning? Damn it, I need information, and you're not delivering."

She held out her hands expressively. "Charles has changed since the plane crash. He's become more secretive. He doesn't confide in me as before."

His eyes went dark. "Then you've become useless to me." She averted her face, the hurt and anger swelling in her breast.

"Don't bother contacting me again," he went on icily, "unless you have something important to say. I'm taking no more risks for boring sex games."

Danielle ran for the door, and then she turned. "You son of a bitch!" she choked through a sob.

How odd, she thought, that she had never seen the monster in him before. She suppressed a shudder and wiped at the tears with the back of her hand as she fled.

His laughter followed her to the car and rang in her ears during the drive to the hospital.

She could not know that back in the bedroom of the cottage Foss Gly lay highly pleased with himself for passing his final test with flying colors.

The President's chief of staff nodded an indifferent greeting and remained seated behind his desk as Pitt was ushered into his office. He glanced up without smiling. "Take a chair, Mr. Pitt. The President will be with you in a few minutes."

There was no offer of a handshake, so Pitt set his briefcase on the carpet and took a couch by the window.

The chief of staff, a young man in his late twenties with the grandiloquent name of Harrison Moon IV, swiftly answered three phone calls and adroitly shuffled papers from one bin to another. Finally he condescended to look in Pitt's direction.

"I want you to be fully aware, Mr. Pitt, that this meeting is highly irregular. The President has precious little time for pithy chats with third-level civil servants. If your father, Senator George Pitt, hadn't made the request and implied that it was urgent, you wouldn't have gotten past the front gate."

Pitt gave the pompous ass an innocent look. "Gosharootie, I'm flattered all to hell."

The chief of staffs face clouded. "I suggest you show respect for the office of the President."

"How can one be impressed with the President," said Pitt with a sardonic smile, "when he hires assholes like you."

Harrison Moon IV stiffened as though shot. "How dare you-!"

At that moment the President's secretary came into the office. "Mr. Pitt, the President will see you now."

"No!" shouted Moon, leaping to his feet, his eyes glazed in rage. "The appointment is canceled!"

Pitt approached Moon and grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and jerked him halfway across the desk. "My advice to you, kid, is not to let the job go to your head." Then he shoved Moon backward into his swivel chair. But Pitt had shoved a bit too hard. The momentum of Moon's weight tipped the chair over and he spilled onto the floor.

Pitt smiled cordially at the stunned presidential secretary and said, "You needn't bother showing me the way, I've been to the oval office before."

Unlike his chief of staff, the President greeted Pitt courteously and held out his hand. "I've often read of your exploits on the Titanic and Vixen projects, Mr. Pitt. I was particularly impressed with your handling of the Doodlebug operation. It's an honor to meet you at last."

"The honor is mine."

"Won't you please sit down," the President said graciously.

"I may not have the time," said Pitt. "I'm sorry?" The President lifted an eyebrow questioningly. "Your chief of staff was rude and treated me damned shabbily, so I called him an asshole and roughed him up a bit."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, sir. I should imagine the Secret Service will burst in here any second and drag me off the premises."

The President walked over to his desk and punched an intercom button. "Maggie, I want no interruptions for any reason until I say so."

Pitt was relieved when the President's face stretched into a wide smile. "Harrison gets carried away at times. Perhaps you may have shown him an overdue lesson in humility."

"I'll apologize on my way out."

"No need." The President dropped into a highbacked chair across a coffee table from Pitt. "Your dad and I go back a long way. We were both elected to Congress in the same year. He told me over the phone you had stumbled on a revelation, as he put it, that boggles the mind."

"Dad's earthy rhetoric," Pitt laughed. "But in this case he's one hundred percent right."

"Tell me what you've got."

Pitt opened the briefcase and began laying papers on the coffee table. "I'm sorry to bore you with a history lesson, Mr. President, but it's necessary to lay the groundwork."

"I'm listening."

"In early nineteen fourteen," Pitt began, "there were no doubts in British minds that war with Imperial Germany was just around the corner. By March, Winston Churchill, who was then first lord of the admiralty, had already armed some forty merchant ships. The War Department forecast the opening of hostilities for September after the European harvest was in. Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, the secretary of state for war, realizing the coming conflict was going to be a colossal drain of men and resources, was shocked to find only enough ammunition and supplies for a three-month campaign.

"At the same time the United Kingdom had been busy on a crash program of social reform that had already caused a substantial increase in taxation. It didn't take a clairvoyant to see that mushrooming armament costs, interest on debts, welfare and pension payments would break the back of the economy."

"So Britain was scraping the bottom of its treasury when it entered World War I," said the President.

"Not quite," replied Pitt. "Shortly before the Germans poured into Belgium, our government had loaned the British one hundred and fifty million dollars. At least it went into the records as a loan. In reality it was a down payment."

"I'm afraid I've lost the trail."

"The Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, and King George V met in a closed-door emergency session on May second and came up with a solution born of desperation. They secretly approached President Wilson with their proposal and he accepted. Richard Essex, undersecretary of state under William Jennings Bryan, and Harvey Shields, deputy secretary of the British Foreign Office, then drafted what was to be briefly known as the North American Treaty."

"And what was the gist of this treaty?" asked the President.

There was a cold silence of perhaps ten seconds while Pitt hesitated. Finally he cleared his throat.

"For the sum of one billion dollars Great Britain sold Canada to the United States."

Pitt's words flew over the President's head. He sat blank, unbelieving of what he heard. "Say again," he demanded.

"We bought Canada for one billion dollars."

"That's absurd."

"But true," said Pitt firmly. "Before the war broke out there were many members of Parliament who doubted loyal support by the colonies and dominions. There were liberals as well as conservatives who openly stated that Canada was a drain on the empire."

"Can you show me proof?" asked the President, his eyes skeptical.

Pitt handed him a copy of Wilson's letter. "This was written by Woodrow Wilson to Prime Minister Asquith on June fourth. You'll note that it was creased through part of one sentence. I ran a spectrograph test on it and found the missing words cause the line to read: 'my countrymen are a possessive lot and would never idly stand by knowing with certainty that our neighbor to the north and our own beloved country had become one.'"

The President studied the letter for several minutes, then he set it on the coffee table. "What else do you have?"

Without comment Pitt passed over the photograph of Bryan, Essex and Shields leaving the White House with the treaty. Then he played his trump card.

"This is the desk diary of Richard Essex for the month of May. The entire scope of the conferences leading to the North American Treaty is set down in scrupulous detail. The last entry is dated May twenty-second, nineteen fourteen, the day Essex left the capital for Canada and the final signing of the treaties."

"You said treaties, plural."

"There were three copies, one for each country involved. The first to sign were Asquith and King George. Shields then carried the historic papers to Washington where, on May twentieth, Wilson and Bryan added their names. Two days later, Essex and Shields departed together by train to Ottawa where the Canadian prime minister, Sir Robert Borden, affixed the last signature."

"Then why was it no formal transfer of Canada into the Union took place?"

"A series of unfortunate circumstances," explained Pitt. "Harvey Shields, in company with a thousand other souls, went down with the transatlantic liner Empress of Ireland after it collided with a coal collier and sank in the St. Lawrence River.

His body and the British copy of the treaty were never recovered."

"But surely Essex reached Washington with the American copy.

Pitt shook his head. "The train carrying Essex plunged off a bridge into the Hudson River. The disaster became something of a classic mystery when neither the crew and the passengers, nor any trace of the train, was ever found."

"That still left one copy in Canadian hands."

"The trail goes cold at this point," said Pitt. "The rest is speculation. Apparently Asquith's cabinet rebelled. The ministers, including no doubt Churchill, must have been furious when they discovered the Prime Minister and the King had tried to sell off their largest dominion behind their backs."

"I doubt the Canadians were overly fond of the deal either."

"With two copies of the treaty gone it would have been a simple matter for Sir Robert Borden, a loyal Englishman, by the way, to have destroyed the third, leaving Wilson with no tangible evidence to advance an American claim."

"It doesn't seem possible official records concerning negotiations of such magnitude could be so conveniently lost," said the President.

"Wilson states in his letter he instructed his secretary to destroy all mention of the pact. I can't speak for the Foreign Office, but it seems a safe bet to say they're collectors. Traditionally, the British aren't given to throwing away or burning documents. Whatever treaty papers survive are probably buried under a ton of dust in some old Victorian warehouse."

The President rose and began pacing. "I wish I could have studied the wording of the treaty."

"You can." Pitt smiled. "Essex penned a draft in his desk diary."

"May I keep it?"

"Of course."

"How did you happen onto this diary?"

"It was in the possession of his grandson," Pitt answered without elaboration.

"John Essex?"

"Yes."

"Why did he keep it a secret all these years?"

"He must have been afraid its exposure would cause an international upheaval."

"He may have been right," said the President. "If the press blasted this discovery on a slow news week, there is no predicting the grassroots reaction by people on both sides of the border. Wilson was right: the Americans are a possessive lot. They might demand a takeover of Canada. And God only knows the hell Congress would raise."

"There is a catch," said Pitt.

The President stopped his pacing. "And that is?"

"There is no record of payment. The initial deposit was converted to a loan. Even if a copy of the treaty turned up, the British would reject it by claiming, and rightfully so, they were never compensated."

"Yes," the President said slowly, "nonpayment could void the treaty."

He moved to the tall windows and gazed across the winter brown grass of the White House lawn, saying nothing, struggling with his thoughts. Finally he turned and stared directly at Pitt.

"Who knows about the North American Treaty besides you?"

"Commander Heidi Milligan, who began the preliminary research after finding the Wilson letter, the Senate historian who uncovered the photographs, my father, and of course, Admiral Sandecker. Since he is my immediate superior I only felt it fair he should know what I was investigating."

"No one else?"

Pitt shook his head. "I can't think of anyone."

"Let's keep it a select club, shall we?"

"Whatever you say, Mr. President."

"I deeply appreciate your bringing this matter to my attention, Mr. Pitt."

"Would you like me to pursue it?"

"No, I think it best if we drop the treaty back in its coffin for now. There is no purpose in damaging our relations with Canada and the United Kingdom. I see it as a simple case of what nobody knows, won't hurt them."

"John Essex would have agreed."

"And you, Mr. Pitt, would you agree?"

Pitt closed his briefcase and stood up. "I'm a marine engineer, Mr. President. I steer well clear of political involvement."

"A wise course," said the President with an understanding smile. "A wise course indeed."

Five seconds after the door closed behind Pitt, the President spoke into his intercom. "Maggie, get me Douglas Oates on the holograph." He settled behind his desk and waited.

Soon after taking up residence in the White House he had ordered a holographic communications system installed in his office. He took an almost childlike interest in studying his cabinet members' expressions, body movements and outward emotions while he visually talked to them miles away.

The three-dimensional image of a man with wavy auburn hair and conservatively attired in a gray pinstripe suit materialized in the middle of the oval office. He was seated in a leather executive chair.

Douglas Oates, the secretary of state, nodded and smiled. "Good morning, Mr. President. How goes the battle?"

"Douglas, how much money has the United States given away to Britain since nineteen fourteen?"

Oates stared quizzically. "Given?"

"Yes, you know, war loans written off, economic aid, contributions, whatever."

Oates shrugged. "A pretty substantial sum, I should imagine."

"Over a billion dollars?"

"Easily," replied Oates. "Why do you ask?"

The President ignored the question. "Arrange for a courier. I have something of interest for my friend in Ottawa."

"More data on the oil bonanza?" Oates persisted.

"Even better. We've just been dealt a wild card on the Canadian solution."

"We need all the luck we can get."

"I guess you might call it a red herring."

"Red herring?"

The President had the look of a cat with a mouse under its paw.

"The perfect ploy," he said, "to divert British attention from the real conspiracy."

The President side stroked to the edge of the White House pool and pulled himself up the ladder as Mercier and Klein came from the dressing room.

"I hope an early morning swim doesn't disrupt your schedules."

"Not at all, Mr. President," said Mercier. "I can use the exercise."

Klein peered around the indoor pool room. "So this is the famous swimming pool. I understand the last president who used it was Jack Kennedy."

"Yes," replied the President. "Nixon had it covered over and held press conferences here. Me, I'd rather swim than face a horde of drooling reporters."

Mercier grinned. "What would the Washington press corps say if they heard you refer to them as a drooling horde?"

"Strictly off the record." The President laughed. "What say we break in the new hot tub? The workmen finished installing it yesterday. "

They settled into a small circular area built into the shallow end of the pool. The President turned on the circulating pumps and set the temperature at 105 degrees Fahrenheit. As the water heated, Mercier felt sure he was being scalded to death. He began to sympathize with lobsters.

Finally the President relaxed and said, "This is as good a place as any to conduct business. Suppose you gentlemen tell me where we stand on the Canadian energy situation."

"The news looks grim," said Mercier. "Our intelligence sources have learned that it was a parliamentary minister, Henri Villon, who ordered the blackout from James Bay."

"Villon." The name rolled off the President's tongue as though it had a bad taste. "He's that double-talking character who bad-mouths the United States every time he buttonholes a reporter.

"The same," replied Mercier. "There's talk he may run for President of the new Quebec republic."

"With Guerrier dead, there is an ugly chance he might win," added Kleii.

A frown crossed the President's face. "I can't think of anything worse than Villon dictating price and supply policies for James Bay and the new oil discovery by NUMA."

"It's frustrating as hell," grumbled Mercier. He turned to Klein. "Is the reserve as vast as Admiral Sandecker predicts?"

"He came in on the low side," Klein answered. "My experts went over NUMA's computer data. It appears ten billion barrels is closer to the mark than eight."

"How is it possible the Canadian oil companies missed it?"

"A stratigraphic trap is the most difficult of all oil deposits to find," explained Klein. "Seismic equipment, gravity meters, magnetometers, none of them can detect the presence of hydrocarbons in that geological state. The only surefire means is by random drilling. The Canadians sank a well within two miles of the Doodlebug's strike but came up dry. The position was inserted on the oil maps with the symbol denoting a dry hole. Other exploration systemns have stayed clear of the area."

Mercier waved the rising steam from in front of his eyes. "It would appear we've made Quebec a very wealthy new nation."

"Provided that we tell them," said the President.

Klein looked at him. "Why keep it a secret? It's only a matter of time before they stumble onto the field themselves. By pointing the way and cooperating in the development, the Quebec government, out of gratitude, will surely sell us the crude oil at reasonable prices."

"A false optimism," said Mercier. "Look what happened in Iran and the OPEC nations. Let's face it, half the world thinks the United States is fair game when it comes to price gouging."

The President tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "Suppose we possessed a piece of paper establishing that Canada belongs to the United States?"

Mercier and Klein sat in bewildered silence, uncertain of what the President had in mind. Finally Mercier spoke the words that were on their minds. "I can't imagine such a document."

"Nor I," said Klein.

"Wishful thinking," the President said, airily waving his hand. "Forget it, we've got more down-to-earth problems to discuss.

Mercier looked into the water. "The greatest danger to our national security is a fragmented Canada. I feel we must do whatever is possible to assist Prime Minister Sarveux in preventing Quebec from going it alone."

"You make a sound case," said the President. "But I'm going to ask you to shelve it."

"Sir?"

"I want you to coordinate a top secret program with the State Department and Central Intelligence to make certain that Quebec independence becomes a reality."

Mercier looked like he'd been bitten by a shark. "I don't think you realize-"

"My decision is final," the president interrupted. "I'm asking you as a friend to follow through for me."

"May I ask why?"

A faraway look came into the President's eyes and Mercier felt a chill run through him at the sudden hardening that entered the man's voice.

"Trust me when I say that a divided Canada is in the best interests of North America."

Klein buttoned up his raincoat as he stood on the south portico of the White House awaiting his car and driver. The threatening gray skies did little to relieve his uneasy mood.

"I can't help wondering if the President is as mad as Henri Villon," he said.

"You misinterpret them," replied Mercier. "Crafty perhaps, but neither man is mad."

"Odd, his fairy tale of combining Canada with the U.S."

"He stepped out of character on that one. What in hell can he have on his mind?"

"You're the national security adviser. If anyone should know, it's you."

"You heard. He's keeping something from me."

"So what happens now?"

"We wait," Mercier answered in a hollow tone. "We wait until I can figure what the President has up his sleeve."

"Sold!"

The auctioneer's voice roared through the amplifiers like a shotgun blast. The usual rumblings from the crowd followed as they marked their programs with the high bid on a 1946 Ford coupe.

"Can we have the next car, please?"

A pearl- white 1939 540K Mercedes-Benz with a Freestone Webb custom body purred quietly onto the center stage of the Richmond, Virginia, Coliseum. A crowd of three thousand people murmured approval as the beams from the overhead spotlights highlighted the gleaming paint on the elegant coach work Bidders milled around the stage, some down on their hands and knees eyeballing the suspension and running gear, others examining every detail of the upholstery, while still others probed about the engine compartment with the savvy of Kentucky horse trainers contemplating a potential derby winner.

Dirk Pitt sat in the third row and rechecked the numerical order in his program. The Mercedes was listed fourteenth in the annual Richmond Antique and Classic Car Auction.

"This is truly a beautiful and exotic automobile," touted the auctioneer. "A queen among classics. Will somebody start the bidding at four hundred thousand?"

The ring men in tuxedos wandered among the crowd, prodding the bidders. Suddenly one raised his hand. "I have one hundred and fifty."

The auctioneer went into his unintelligible singsong spiel, and the bidding became brisk as car buffs began the ritual of competing for the prize. Quickly, the mark of two hundred thousand was reached and passed.

Absorbed in the action, Pitt did not notice a young man in a three-piece suit slip into the empty seat next to him. "Mr. Pitt?"

Pitt turned and looked into the babyish face of Harrison Moon IV.

"Funny," Pitt said without surprise, "you didn't strike me as the type who would be interested in old cars."

"Actually, I'm interested in you."

Pitt gave him an amused look. "If you're gay, you're wasting your time."

Moon frowned and looked around to see if anyone seated nearby was tuned to their conversation. They were all wrapped up in the bidding. "I'm here on official government business. Can we go someplace private and talk?"

"Give me five minutes," said Pitt. "I'm bidding on the next car.

"Now, if you please, Mr. Pitt," saidsmoon, trying to look commanding. "My business with you is far more important than watching grown men throw money away on obsolete junk."

"I have two hundred and eighty thousand," the auctioneer droned. "Will someone give me three hundred."

"At least you can't call it cheap," said Pitt calmly. "That car happens to be a mechanical work of art, an investment that appreciates from twenty to thirty percent a year. Your grandchildren won't be able to touch it for less than two million dollars."

"I'm not here to argue the future of antiques. Shall we go?"

"Not a chance."

"Perhaps you might curb your obstinacy if I were to tell you I'm here on behalf of the President."

Pitt's expression had turned to stone. "Big goddamned deal. Why is it every punk who goes to work for the White House thinks he can intimidate the world? Go back and tell the President you failed, Mr. Moon. You might also inform him that if he wants something from me to send a messenger boy who can demonstrate a degree of class."

Moon's face turned pale. This wasn't going the way he'd planned, not at all.

"I…... I can't do that," he stammered.

"Tough."

The auctioneer raised his gavel. "Going once…... twice for three hundred and sixty thousand." He paused, scanning the audience. "If there is no further advance…... sold to Mr. Robert Esbenson of Denver, Colorado."

Moon had been cut down, coldly, unmercifully. He took the only avenue left open to him. "Okay, Mr. Pitt, your rules."

The Mercedes was driven off and a four-door, two-tone straw-and-beige convertible took its place. The auctioneer fairly glowed as he described its features.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, number fifteen on your program. A 1950 British-built Jensen. A very rare car. The only model of this particular coach work known to exist. A real beauty. May we open the bidding at fifty thousand?"

The first bid came in at twenty-five thousand. Pitt sat in silence as the price climbed. Moon studied him. "Aren't you going to bid?"

"All in good time."

A stylishly dressed woman in her late forties waved her bidder's card. The auctioneer nodded and ordained her with a smile. "I have twenty-nine thousand from the lovely Ms. O'Leery of Chicago."

"Does he know everybody?" Moon asked, showing a spark of interest.

"Collectors form a loose clique," replied Pitt. "Most of us usually show up at the same auctions."

The bidding slowed at forty-two thousand. The auctioneer sensed the peak had come. "Come now, ladies and gentlemen, this car is worth much, much more." Pitt raised his bidder's card.

"Thank you, sir. I now have forty-three. Will anyone raise it to forty-four?"

Ms. O'Leery, wearing a designer double-breasted wool checked jacket and a slim taupe flannel skirt with a revealing front slit, signaled for an advance.

Before the auctioneer could announce her bid, Pitt's card was in the air. "Now she knows she's got a fight on her hands," he said to Moon.

"Forty- four and now forty-five. Who will make it forty-six?"

The bidding stalled. Ms. O'Leery conversed with a younger man sitting next to her. She seldom showed up with the same consort at two auctions. She was a self-made woman who had built a tidy fortune merchandising her own brand of cosmetics. Her collection was one of the finest in the world and numbered nearly one hundred cars. When the ring man leaned down to solicit a bid, she shook her head and then turned around and winked at Pitt.

"That was hardly the wink of a friendly competitor," observed Moon.

"You should try an older woman sometime," said Pitt as though lecturing a schoolboy. "There's little they don't know about men." An attractive girl maneuvered down Pitt's aisle and asked him to sign the sales agreement.

"Now?" asked Moon hopefully. "How did you get here?"

"My girlfriend drove me down from Arlington."

Pitt came to his feet. "while you round her up, I'll go to the office and settle my account. Then she can follow us."

"Follow us?"

"You wanted to talk in private, Mr. Moon. So I'm going to give you a treat and drive you back to Arlington in a real automobile."

The Jensen rolled effortlessly over the highway toward Washington. Pitt kept one eye out for the traffic patrol and the other on the speedometer. His foot held the accelerator at a steady seventy miles an hour.

Moon buttoned his overcoat up to the neck and looked miserable. "Doesn't this relic have a heater?"

Pitt hadn't noticed the cold seeping in through the cloth top. As long as the engine hummed, he was in his element. He turned a knob on the dashboard and soon a thin wisp of warm air spread through the Jensen's interior. "Okay, Moon, we're alone. What's your story?"

"The President would like you to lead fishing expeditions into the St. "Lawrence and Hudson rivers."

Pitt jerked his eyes off the road and stared at Moon. "You're joking?"

"I couldn't be more serious. He thinks you're the only qualified man to take a stab at finding the copies of the North American Treaty."

"You know about it?"

"Yes, he took me into his confidence ten minutes after you left his office. I'm to act as liaison during your search."

Pitt slowed the car down to the legal speed limit and was silent for several seconds. Then he said, "I don't think he knows what he's asking."

"I assure you the President has looked at it from every angle."

"He's asking the impossible and expecting a miracle." Pitt's expression was incredulous, his voice quiet. "There's no way a piece of paper can remain intact after being immersed in water for three-quarters of a century."

"I admit the project sounds unpromising," agreed Moon. "And yet, if there is one chance in ten million a copy of the treaty exists, the President feels we must make an effort to find it.

Pitt stared down the road that split the Virginia countryside. "Suppose for a minute we got lucky and laid the North American Treaty on his lap? What then?"

"I can't say."

"Can't or won't?"

"I'm only a special aide to the President…... a messenger boy as you so rudely put it. I do what I'm told. My orders are to give you every assistance and see that your requests for funds and equipment are met. What happens if and when you salvage a readable document is none of my business and certainly none of yours.

"Tell me, Moon," said Pitt, a faint smile edged on his lips. "Have you ever read How to Win Friends and Influence People?"

"Never heard of it."

"I'm not surprised." Pitt ran up the rear end of an electric minicar that refused to yield the fast lane and blinked the Jensen's lights. The other driver finally signaled and gave way. "What if I say no deal?"

Moon stiffened almost imperceptibly. "The President would be most disappointed."

"I'm flattered." Pitt drove along, lost in thought. Then he turned and nodded. "Okay, I'll give it my best shot. I presume we're to begin immediately."

Moon simply nodded, vastly relieved.

"Item one on your list," said Pitt. "I'll need NUMA's manpower and resources. Most important, Admiral Sandecker must be informed of the project. I won't work behind his back."

"What you're about to attempt, Mr. Pitt, falls under the trite term of 'delicate situation.' The fewer people who know about the treaty, the less chance the Canadians get wind of it."

"Sandecker must be informed," Pitt repeated firmly.

"All right, I'll set up a meeting and acquaint him with the project."

"Not good enough. I want the admiral briefed by the President. He deserves that."

Moon had the look of a man who has had his wallet picked.

He kept his eyes straight ahead when he replied. "Okay, consider it done."

"Item two," Pitt continued. "We'll need a pro to handle the historical research."

"There are several top men around Washington who have taken on government assignments. I'll send you their resumes."

"I was thinking of a woman."

"Any particular reason?"

"Commander Heidi Milligan did the preliminary research on the treaty. She knows her way through archives, and she'd be one less to initiate into the club."

"Makes sense," said Moon thoughtfully, "except that she's somewhere out in the Pacific."

"Ring up the chief of naval operations and get her back, providing, of course, you carry the clout."

"I carry the clout, Mr. Pitt," Moon replied coolly.

"Item three. One of the treaty copies went down with the Empress of Ireland, which lies in Canadian waters. There's no way we can keep our diving operations a secret. Under existing salvage laws we're required to notify their government, the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which owned the vessel, and the insurance companies that paid off the claims."

The subdued expression on Moon's face turned smug. "I'm ahead of you on that score. The necessary paperwork is in the mill. Your cover story is that you're an archaeological team searching for artifacts that will be preserved and donated to American and Canadian maritime museums. You should be able to bring up enough trash during the operation to pacify any prying eyes."

"Item four," said Pitt. "The money."

"Ample funds will be placed at your disposal to see the job through."

Pitt hesitated before he spoke again, listening to the steady purr of the Jensen's 130-horsepower engine. The sun had dropped below the tops of the trees and he turned on the lights.

"I make no guarantees," he said at last.

"Understood."

"How do we stay in touch?"

Moon took out a pen and wrote on the back of Pitt's auction program. "I'll be available at this number on a twenty-four hour basis. We won't meet face to face again unless you run into an unexpected crisis." He paused and looked at Pitt, trying to fathom the man. But Pitt could not be read. "Any other questions?"

"No," said Pitt, wrapped in thought. "No more questions."

There were a hundred questions swirling in Pitt's mind; none that could be answered by Moon.

He tried to visualize what he might find beneath the forbidding currents of the Hudson and St. Lawrence rivers, but nothing jelled. And then he began to wonder what was behind the mad, unfathomable scheme that was hurling him into the unknown.

"The time for decision."

Sandecker spoke to no one in particular as he gazed at the hydrographic charts, photo-enlarged to cover the far wall of the NUMA operations room. He rapped a knuckle against the one depicting a section of the Hudson River.

"Do we tackle the Manhattan Limited first?" He paused and gestured at the adjoining chart. "Or the Empress of Ireland?" He refaced the room and studied the four people seated around the long table. "Which one should take priority?"

Heidi Milligan, whose face showed the fatigue of a long flight from Honolulu, started to say something, but held back.

"Ladies first," Al Giordino said, grinning.

"I'm not qualified to voice an opinion on underwater salvage," she said hesitantly. "But I believe the ship offers the best chance of finding a readable treaty."

"Care to state your reasons?" asked Sandecker.

"Before the days of air travel," Heidi explained, "it was standard procedure for diplomatic couriers who sailed across the oceans to seal documents inside several layers of oilcloth as a protection against water damage. I recall one incident where important papers were found intact on a British Foreign Office courier when his body washed ashore six days after the Lusitania sinking." Sandecker smiled and nodded at her in satisfaction. She would be a good woman to have around. "Thank you, Commander. You've given us our first ray of hope."

Giordino yawned. He had spent most of the night being briefed on the project by Pitt, and it was all he could do to stay awake. "Perhaps Richard Essex wrapped his copy of the treaty in oilcloth too."

Heidi shook her head. "Most likely he would have carried it in a leather traveling bag."

"Little chance of that surviving," Sandecker acknowledged.

"My vote still goes to the train," said Giordino. "The Empress lies in a hundred and sixty-five feet-well below the safe depth for air diving. The train, on the other hand, can be no deeper than forty feet. After seven decades the ship must be eaten away by saltwater flowing in from the St. Lawrence Gulf. The train would be better preserved by fresh river water."

Sandecker turned to a small man whose owlish brown eyes peered through a large pair of horned-rimmed glasses. "Rudi, how do you see it?"

Rudi Gunn, NUMA's director of logistics, looked up from a pad filled with scribbles and unconsciously scratched one side of his nose. Gunn rarely gambled or played the angles. He dealt his cards from solid facts, never vague percentages.

"I favor the ship," he said quietly. "The only advantage of salvaging the Manhattan Limited is that it rests on home ground. However, the current of the Hudson River is three-and a-half knots. Far too strong for divers to work with any level of efficiency. And, as Al suggested, chances are, the engine and coaches are buried in the silt. This calls for a dredging operation. The worst kind."

"The salvage of a ship in open water is far more complex and time-consuming than bringing up a Pullman car from shallow depths," Giordino argued.

"True," Gunn conceded. "But we know where the Empress lies. The grave of the Manhattan Limited has never been found."

"Trains don't dissolve. We're looking at a confined area less than a mile square. A sweep with a proton magnetometer should make contact within a few hours."

"You talk as if the locomotive and coaches are still attached by their couplings. After the fall from the bridge they probably were scattered all over the riverbed. We could spend weeks excavating the wrong car. I can't accept the odds. It's too hit or-miss."

Giordino did not retreat. "What would you calculate the odds are against finding a small packet inside a crumbling fourteen thousand-ton vessel?"

"We ignore the odds." Dirk Pitt spoke quietly and for the first time. He sat at the end of the table, hands folded behind his head. "I say we try for both simultaneously."

Silence settled over the operations room. Giordino sipped at his coffee, mulling over Pitt's words. Gunn peered speculatively through his thick-lensed glasses.

"Can we afford the complications of dividing our efforts?"

"Better to ask, can we afford the time?" Pitt answered.

"Do we have a deadline?" Giordino queried.

"No, we're not held to a set schedule," said Sandecker. He moved away from the charts and sat on one corner of the table. "But the President made it clear to me that if a copy of the North American Treaty still exists, he wants it damned quick." The admiral shook his head. "What in hell good a soggy scrap of seventy-five-year-old paper is to our government, or what the urgency of finding it is, was not explained. I wasn't offered the luxury of reasoning why. Dirk is right. We don't have the time to conduct leisurely search projects in tandem."

Giordino looked at Pitt and sighed. "Okay, we shoot for two birds with one stone."

"Two stones," Pitt corrected him. "While a salvage expedition forces its way inside the ship's hull, a survey team probes the Hudson for the Manhattan Limited, or specifically, for the government railroad coach that carried Richard Essex."

"How soon can we get the show on the road?" asked Sandecker.

Pitt's eyes took on a detached look, as though they were focused on an object beyond the walls of the room. "Forty-eight hours to assemble a crew and gear, twenty-four to load and outfit a vessel. Then allowing for good sailing weather, we should be moored over the Empress in five days."

"And the Manhattan Limited?"

"I can put a boat equipped with magnetometer, side-scan sonar and a sub-bottom profiler on site by this time the day after tomorrow," Giordino replied positively.

The time estimates seemed optimistic to Sandecker, but he never questioned the men in front of him. They were the best in the business and they rarely disappointed him. He stood up and nodded at Giordino.

"Al, the Manhattan Limited search is yours. Rudi, you'll head the salvage operation on the Empress of Ireland." He turned to Pitt. "Dirk, you'll act as combined projects director."

"Where would you like me to start?" asked Heidi.

"With the ship. The builder's blueprints, deck plans, the exact area of Harvey Shields' stateroom. Any relevant data that will lead us to the treaties."

Heidi nodded. "The public inquiry into the disaster was held in Quebec. I'll begin by digging into the transcript of the findings. If your secretary will book me on the next flight, I'll be on my way."

She looked mentally and physically exhausted, but Sandecker was too pressured for time to voice a gentlemanly offer of a few hours' sleep. He paused a few moments, staring into each determined face. "AU right," he said without emotion. "Let's do it."

General Morris Simms, casually attired as a fisherman, felt oddly out of character carrying a bamboo rod and wicker creel as he walked down a worn path to the River Blackwater near the village of Seward's End, Essex. He stopped at the edge of the bank under a picturesque stone bridge and nodded a greeting to a man who was seated on a folding chair, patiently contemplating a bobber on the surface of the water.

"Good morning, Prime Minister."

"Good morning, Brigadier."

"Frightfully sorry to trouble you on your holiday."

"Not at all," said the Prime Minister. "The bloody perch aren't biting anyway." He tilted his head toward the portable table beside him that held a bottle of wine and what looked to Simms like a ham-and-veal pie. "There's extra glasses and plates in the basket. Help yourself to the sherry and pie."

"Thank you, sir, I think I shall."

"What's on your mind?"

"The North American Treaty, sir." He paused as he poured the sherry. "Our man in the States reports the Americans are going to make an all-out effort to find it."

"Any chance they might?"

"Very doubtful." Simms held up the bottle. "More sherry?"

"Yes, thank you."

Simms poured. "At first I thought they might make a few simple probes. Nothing elaborate, of course, a small operation to convince themselves there was little hope of a document surviving. However, it now seems they're going after it in deadly earnest."

"Not good," the Prime Minister grunted. "That indicates, to me at least, that if they're remotely successful, they intend to exercise the terms set down in the treaty."

"My thought also," Simms agreed.

"I can't picture the Commonwealth without Canada," said the Prime Minister. "The entire framework of our overseas trade organization would begin an inevitable collapse. As it is, our economy is in shambles. The loss of Canada would be a disaster."

"As bad as all that?"

"Worse." The Prime Minister stared into the stream while he spoke. "If Canada goes, Australia and New Zealand would follow in three years. I don't have to tell you where that would leave the United Kingdom."

The enormity of the Prime Minister's dire prediction was beyond Simms' comprehension. England without an empire was inconceivable. And yet, sadly, deep down he knew British stoicism could find a way to accept it.

The bobber made a couple of quick dips but became still again. The Prime Minister sipped at the sherry thoughtfully. He was a formidably heavy-featured man with unblinking blue eyes and a mouth that ticked up at the edges in a perpetual smile.

"What instructions are your people working under?" he asked.

"Only to observe and report the Americans' actions."

"Are they aware of the treaty's potential threat?"

"No, sir."

"You'd better inform them. They must be aware of the danger to our nation. Where do we stand otherwise?"

"Using the National Underwater and Marine Agency as a cover, the President has ordered an intensive salvage operation on the Empress of Ireland."

"This thing must be nipped in the bud. We've got to keep them off the Empress."

Simms cleared his throat. "By…... ah what measures, sir?"

"It's time we told the Canadians what the Americans are about. Offer our cooperation within the framework of Commonwealth law. Request they revoke permission for NUMA to operate on the St. Lawrence. If the President persists in this folly, blow up the wreck and destroy the British treaty copy once and for all."

"And the American copy that was lost on the train? We can't very well order them off their own river."

The Prime Minister shot Simms an acid look. "Then you'll just have to think of something a bit more drastic, won't you?"

Part IV

THE EMPRESS OF IRELAND

MAY 1989

OTTAWA CANADA

Villon closed the file cover and shook his head.

"Nonsense."

"I assure you," said Brian Shaw, "it is not nonsense."

"What does it all mean?"

"Exactly what you read in the report," said Shaw, staring directly at Villon. "The Americans have launched a search for evidence of a treaty that gives the whole of Canada to them."

"Until now, I've never heard of such a treaty."

"Few people have." Shaw paused to light a cigarette. "Immediately after the documents were lost, all but a few references to the negotiations were secretly destroyed."

"What proof do you have the Americans are actually out to lay their hands on this treaty?"

"I followed a string through a labyrinth. It led to a chap by the name of Dirk Pitt who holds a high level position with the National Underwater and Marine Agency. I had him watched closely by embassy personnel. They discovered he is leading two search expeditions: one to the spot on the Hudson River where Essex's train was lost, and the other to the Empress of Ireland. I can assure you, Mr. Villon, he is not looking for treasure."

Villon sat silently for a moment. Then he shifted in his chair and leaned forward. "How can I help you?"

"For starters, you could order Pitt and his crew off the St. Lawrence."

Villon shook his head. "I can't do that. Permission for the salvage operation went through the proper channels. There is no telling what the Americans might do if we suddenly revoked their license. They could easily retaliate by shutting off our fishing rights in their waters."

"General Simms considered that prospect. So he came up with another option." Shaw paused a moment. "He suggests that we destroy the wreck of the Empress."

"You could do that without causing a nasty incident?"

"Provided that I can reach the wreckage before Pitt does."

Villon sat back, coldly analyzing how the information Shaw had put before him could be exploited to his advantage. He let his eyes drift across the room to a painting on the wall of a clipper ship under full sail before the wind. At last, his thoughts arranged, he nodded. "I shall give you every cooperation."

"Thank you," Shaw replied. "I'll require the services of five men, a boat and the proper diving equipment."

"You'll need a good man to coordinate your plans."

"Do you have someone in mind?"

"I do," said Villon. "I'll see that he gets in touch with you. He is a Mountie, well trained for this sort of work. His name is Gly, Inspector Foss Gly."

The expedition to locate the Manhattan Limited seemed jinxed from the start. Giordino was frustrated to the gills. Already he was four days behind on his promised schedule.

After a hurried dockside loading of men and equipment, the trim new research boat, the De Soto, sixty feet long and especially designed by NUMA engineers to cruise inland waterways, churned upriver and headed toward near destruction.

The helmsman kept a keen eye on the channel buoys and passing pleasure craft. His main concern, however, was the falling barometer and a light splattering of rain on the wheelhouse windows. Together they promised a first-class storm by nightfall.

As darkness settled, the river's chop began throwing spray over the De Soto's foredeck. Suddenly the wind howled down over the steep palisades bordering the shoreline, gusting from twenty miles an hour to over sixty. The force of the blast pushed the speeding boat out of the main channel. Before the helmsman could literally muscle it back on course, it had driven into shallow waters, ripping a two-foot gash under its port bow on what was believed to be a submerged log.

For the next four hours, Giordino drove his crew with the heavy hand of a Captain Bligh. The sonar operator insisted later that the feisty Italian's tongue lashed about his ears like a bullwhip. It was a masterful performance. The hole was plugged until there were only a few small trickles, but not before the water had risen above the bilges and was sloshing ankle deep on the lower deck.

Laden with two tons of water, the De Soto handled sluggishly. Giordino ignored it in his fury and crammed the throttles to their stops. The sudden burst of speed raised the splintered wound above, the waterline and the vessel hurtled back down the river toward New York.

Two days were lost while the boat was dry docked and its hull repaired. No sooner had they gotten underway again than the magnetometer was found to be defective and a new unit rushed from San Francisco. Two more days down the drain.

At last, under the light of a full moon, Giordino watched cautiously as the De Soto slipped under the massive stone abutment that had once supported the Hudson-Deauville bridge. He poked his head in the open wheelhouse window.

"What do you read on the fathometer?"

Glen Chase, the taciturn, balding captain of the boat, cast an eye at the red digital numerals. "About twenty feet. Looks safe enough to park here till morning."

Giordino shook his head at Chase's land talk. The captain stoutly refused to voice the language of the sea, using left for port and right for starboard, claiming that ancient tradition did not fit the modern scheme of the times.

The anchor was dropped and the boat secured by lines running to a convenient tree on shore and the rusting remains of the bridge pier in the river. The engines were shut down and the auxiliary power unit fired up. Chase stared up at the crumbling abutment.

"Must have been quite a structure in its day."

"Fifth longest in the world when it was built," said Giordino.

"What do you suppose caused it to fall?"

Giordino shrugged. "According to the inquiry report, the evidence was inconclusive. The best theory was high winds combined with lightning strikes weakened a supporting truss."

Chase nodded his head toward the river. "Think it's waiting down there?"

"The train?" Giordino gazed at the moonlit waters. "It's there all right. The wreckage wasn't found in 1914 because all salvage men had at their command were copper-helmeted divers in clumsy canvas suits, groping in zero visibility, and grapples dragged by small boats. Their equipment was too limited and they looked in the wrong place."

Chase lifted his cap and scratched his head. "We should know in a couple of days."

"Less, with any luck."

"How about a beer?" Chase asked, smiling. "I always buy for an optimist."

"I believe I will," said Giordino.

Chase disappeared down a stairwell and made his way to the galley. In the main dining salon the crew could be heard joking among themselves as they adjusted the television dish antenna to pick up signals from a passing relay satellite.

A sudden chill raised goose bumps on Giordino's hairy arms, and he reached inside the wheelhouse for a windbreaker. As he was pulling up the zipper he hesitated and cocked an ear.

Chase appeared and handed him a beer can. "I didn't bother with glasses."

Giordino held up his hand for silence. "You hear that?"

Chase's brow furrowed. "Hear what?"

"Listen."

Chase tilted his head, his eyes locked in the unseeing stare of a man concentrating on sounds. "A train whistle," he announced indifferently.

"You sure?"

Chase nodded. "I can hear it plainly. Definitely a train whistle."

"Don't you find that odd?" asked Giordino.

"Why should I?"

"Diesel locomotives have air horns. Only the old steam engines blew whistles, and the last one was retired thirty years ago.

"Could be one of those kids' rides at an amusement park somewhere up the river," Chase surmised. "Sound can carry for miles over water."

"I don't think so," Giordino said, cupping his ears and swinging his head back and forth like a radar antenna. "It's getting louder…... louder and closer."

Chase ducked into the wheelhouse and returned with a land road map and a flashlight. He unfolded the paper over the deck railing and beamed the light.

"Look here," he said pointing to the tiny blue lines. "The main rail line cuts inland twenty miles south of here."

"And the nearest track?"

"Ten, maybe twelve miles."

"Whatever is making that sound is no more than a mile away," Giordino said flatly.

Giordino tried to fix the direction. The blazing moon illuminated the landscape with crystal clarity. He could distinguish individual trees two miles away. The sound was approaching along the west bank of the river above them. There was no movement of any kind, no lights except those of a few distant farmhouses.

Another shriek.

New sounds now. The clangor of heavy steel, the throaty, pulsating exhaust of steam and combustion split the night. Giordino felt as if he was suspended in air. He stood rigid. He waited.

"It's turning-turning toward us," Chase rasped as though he was still trying to convince himself. "God, it's coming off the ruins of the bridge."

They both stared upward at the top of the abutment, unable to breathe, unable to grasp what was happening. All at once the deafening noise of the invisible train exploded out of the dark above them. Giordino instinctively ducked. Chase froze, his face a ghastly corpse-white, the enlarged pupils of his eyes black pits you could fall into.

And then, abruptly, silence-a silence deathlike and ominous.

Neither man spoke, neither moved. They stood rooted to the deck like wax figures without hearts or lungs. Slowly Giordino gathered his thoughts and took the flashlight from Chase's unresisting hand. He shone its beam on the top of the abutment.

There was nothing to see but time-worn stone and impenetrable shadows.

The Ocean Venturer lay anchored over the wreck of the Empress of Ireland. A light rain had passed in the early morning hours and the Venturer's white hull glistened orange under the new sun. In contrast, a tired old fishing boat, its faded blue paint scarred and chipped, lazily trolled its nets two hundred yards away. To the fishermen the Ocean Venturer, silhouetted against the brightening horizon, looked as if it had been created by an artist with a warped sense of humor.

Its hull lines were aesthetic and contemporary. Beginning with its gracefully rounded bow, the main deck line traveled in an eye-pleasing curve to the oval fantail. There were none of the sharp edges associated with most other ships; even the eggshaped bridge rested on an arched spire. But there the beauty ended. Like a Cyrano's repulsive nose, a derrick similar to those erected in new oil fields protruded incongruously from the Ocean Venturer's midsection.

Functional, if not attractive, the derrick possessed the capability of lowering a variety of scientific packages through the hull to the seafloor or of raising heavy objects such as salvage debris straight into the ship's bowels. The Ocean Venturer was the perfect vessel to act as a work platform for the treaty search.

Pitt stood on the stern, clutching a Portuguese fisherman's cap tightly to his head as the blades of a NUMA helicopter whipped the air around him. For a few moments the pilot hovered while he tested the wind currents. Then he dropped the chopper slowly until the skids settled firmly on the painted markings of the flight pad.

Pitt hunched over, jogged up to the craft and opened the door. Heidi Milligan, dressed in a jumpsuit of cotton painter's cloth in dazzling azure blue, hopped out. Pitt helped her down and took a suitcase that was passed to him by the pilot.

"On your next taxi run," Pitt yelled above the whine of the turbines, "bring us a case of peanut butter."

The pilot waved a casual salute and shouted back, "Shall do."

Pitt escorted Heidi across the deck as the helicopter lifted from the pad and dipped its nose toward the south. She turned to him and smiled. "Does the project director always double as baggage porter?"

"Like the man said," Pitt laughed, "I get no respect."

Several minutes after he showed her to her quarters, she entered the dining salon carrying a packet of papers and sat down beside him. "How was your trip?"

"Productive," she replied. "How's your end?"

"We arrived on site yesterday afternoon, eighteen hours ahead of schedule, and positioned the Ocean Venturer above the wreck."

"What's your next move?"

"A small unmanned remote sub with cameras will be lowered to survey the Empress. The video data it relays to our monitors will be studied and analyzed."

"What angle does the ship lie?"

"Forty- five degrees to starboard." Heidi frowned.

"Lousy luck."

"Why?"

She began to spread the papers over the table. Some were quite large and had to be unfolded.

"Before I answer that, here's a copy of the passenger list from the Empress on its final sailing. At first I thought I hit a dead end when I couldn't find Harvey Shields' name among the first-class passengers. Then it occurred to me that he might have traveled in a lower class to avoid advertising his presence. Most transatlantic liners provided plush accommodations on second-class decks for wealthy but frugal eccentrics or highlevel government officials who wanted to cross the oceans in low profile. That's where I found him. Upper deck D, cabin forty-six."

"Nice work. You put a fix on the needle in the haystack. Now we don't have to tear the whole ship apart."

"That's the good news," said Heidi. "Now the bad news."

"Let's have it."

"The Storstad, the Norwegian coal collier that sank the Empress, struck the liner starboard amidships almost directly between the funnels, gouging a wedge-shaped hole over fifteen feet wide and nearly fifty feet in height. The collier's bow sliced into the boiler rooms below the waterline with a section of the second-class accommodations straight above."

"You're suggesting that the Storstad obliterated Shields' cabin?"

"We have to consider the worst possibility." Heidi spread a copy of the Empress of Ireland's plans over the charts. She pointed a pencil tip at a small circled area. "Number forty-six was an outside starboard cabin. It was either damned close or directly in the middle of the impact point."

"That could explain why Shields' body was never found."

"He was probably crushed to death in his sleep."

"What did you mean by 'lousy luck' when I gave you the wreck's angle?"

"A forty- five-degree list to starboard would put cabin forty six in the riverbed," Heidi replied. "The interior must be buried in silt.

"Back to square one. The silt would preserve the treaty's covering but make it almost impossible to find."

Heidi sat silently watching Pitt as he slowly tapped his fingers on the table, his mind rummaging through the data laid before him. His deep green eyes took on a faraway look.

She reached over and touched his hand. "What are you thinking about?"

"The Empress of Ireland," Pitt said quietly. "It's the ship the world forgot. A tomb of a thousand souls. God only knows what we'll find when we get inside her."

"I hope you don't mind seeing me on such short notice," said the President as he strode from the elevator.

"Not at all," replied Sandecker without fanfare. "Everything has been constructed. Please step this way."

The President motioned his Secret Service men to wait by the elevator. Then he followed the admiral down a carpeted hallway to a large cedar double door. Sandecker opened it and stood aside.

"After you, Mr. President."

The room was circular and the walls were covered by a dark purple fabric. There were no windows and the only piece of furniture was a large kidney-shaped table that stood in the center. Its surface was illuminated by blue and green overhead spotlights. The President approached and stared at a three-footlong object resting on a bed of fine-grained sand.

"So this is how it looks," he said in a reverent tone.

"The grave of the Empress of Ireland," Sandecker acknowledged. "Our miniature craftsman worked from video pictures relayed by the Ocean Venturer."

"Is that the salvage ship?" the President asked, pointing to another model that was suspended on a clear plastic plate about two feet above the Empress.

"Yes, the models are in exact proportion to each other. The distance between them represents the depth from the surface to the riverbed."

The President studied the Empress model for several seconds. Then he shook his head in wonderment. "The treaty is so small and the ship so large. Where do you begin to look?"

"Our researcher had a breakthrough on that score," said Sandecker. "She was able to pinpoint the location of Harvey Shields' cabin." He motioned to an area amidships on the buried starboard hull. "It lies somewhere about here. There is, unfortunately, a good possibility that the cabin was mangled in the collision with the coal collier."

"How will you go about reaching the cabin?"

"After the crew conducts a survey of the interior of the ship by an unmanned remote search vehicle," replied Sandecker, "the salvage operation will start on the lifeboat deck and excavate downward to the target site."

"It looks like they're going about it the hard way," said the President. "Me, I'd enter from outside the lower hull."

"Easier said…... As near as we can figure, Shields' cabin lies under tons of silt. Take my word for it, Mr. President, dredging through river mud is a dangerous, exhausting, time-consuming procedure. By attacking from inside the ship the men will have a firm platform from which to work, and most important, they'll be able to orient the exact direction of their penetration from the shipbuilder's plans at any time during the operation."

"You've made your case," the President acquiesced.

Sandecker went on: "We're relying on four different systems to tunnel through the guts of the ship. One is the derrick you see on the Ocean Venturer. Designed for a lifting load of fifty tons, it will remove the heavier debris. Second, a two-man submersible with mechanical arms will function as an all-purpose back up unit."

The President picked up a detailed miniature and studied it. "I take it this represents the submersible?"

Sandecker nodded. "The Sappho I. It was one of four deepwater recovery vehicles used on the Titanic project last year."

"I didn't mean to interrupt. Please continue."

"The third system is the keystone of the operation," said Sandecker. He held up a doll-like figure that resembled a mechanical polar bear with portholes in a bulbous head. "An articulated, deepwater atmospheric diving system, more commonly called a JIM suit. It is constructed of magnesium and fiberglass, and a man inside it can work at tremendous depths for hours at a time while eliminating the need for decompression. Two of these suits will enable six men to work on the wreck around the clock."

"Looks heavy and cumbersome."

"In air, with an operator inside, it weighs eleven hundred pounds. Under water, only about sixty. It's surprisingly agile. You might say it puts hiking on the seafloor in a class with hiking on the Sahara."

The President took the figure from Sandecker's offered hand and moved the tiny articulated arms and legs. "It also makes aqualung divers obsolete."

"Not entirely," answered Sandecker. "A diver with three dimensional mobility is still the backbone of any salvage operation. The fourth and final system is called saturation diving." He gestured at a model in the form of a cylindrical tank. "A team of divers will live in this pressurized chamber while breathing a mixture of helium and oxygen. This prevents the narcotic effects of inhaling nitrogen under pressure. The chamber permits men to work underwater for long stretches of time without the danger of lung gases dissolving into the bloodstream, forming bubbles and causing the bends. Also, they don't have to decompress until the job is finished."

The President fell silent. By education and occupation he was an attorney, a precise and analytical man-and yet scientific data was beyond him. He did not wish to appear stupid in front of the admiral. He chose his words carefully.

"Surely your people don't intend to literally claw a path through an acre of steel."

"No, there is a better method."

"Like explosives perhaps?"

"Too risky." Sandecker replied matter-of-factly. "The steel in the wreck has been under attack by corrosive elements for seventy-five years. It has become porous and its tensile strength is greatly reduced. A charge in the wrong place or one too strong, and the whole ship could collapse in on itself. No, we'll cut our way through."

"With acetylene cutting torches, then."

"With pyroxone."

"Never heard of it."

"A pliable incendiary substance that can burn under water at an incredibly high temperature for pre controlled lengths of time. Once pyroxone is molded against the surface to be separated, it is ignited by an electronic signal. At three thousand degrees Celsius it will melt any barrier in its way, including rock."

"It's hard to imagine."

"If I can answer any more questions."

The President made a disparaging gesture. "No, I'm satisfied. You and your people are doing a remarkable job."

"If we don't come up with the treaty, you'll know we did all that was technically possible."

"I gather you're not too hopeful."

"Frankly, Mr. President, I think we have about as much chance as a titmouse in a buzzard's beak."

"What are your feelings concerning the treaty on the Manhattan Limited?"

"I'll save any comment until we find the train."

"At least I know your position," the President said, smiling.

Sandecker suddenly looked wolfish. "Sir, I have a question."

"Go ahead."

"May I respectfully ask just what in hell this is all about?"

It was the President's turn to look wolfish. "You may well ask, Admiral, but all I'm going to tell you is that the scheme is crazy," he said with an ill-boding look in his eyes. "The craziest scheme ever hatched by a president of the United States.

The silence in the dense green depths of the St. Lawrence River was broken by a strange whirring sound. Then a thin shaft of bright bluish light sliced into the cold water, slowly increasing in dimension until it became a large rectangle. A school of curious fish, attracted by the brilliant glow, swam toward it in languid circles, seemingly uncaring of the blurred shadows that wavered above them.

Inside the huge center well of the Ocean Venturer a team of engineers readied a remote-search vehicle that hung suspended by a cable-from a small crane. One man adjusted the light source units for the three cameras while another linked up the battery power supply.

The RSV was shaped like an elongated teardrop, only three feet long and ten inches in diameter, and showed no protrusions on its smooth titanium skin. Steering and propulsion were provided by a small hydrojet pump with variable thrusters.

Heidi stood on the edge of the well opening and peered at the fish below.

"A strange feeling," she said. "Looking at water inside a ship and wondering why, we not sinking."

"Because you're standing four feet above the surface," Rudi Gunn answered her with a grin. "So long as the river can't penetrate below the waterline, we stay afloat."

One of the engineers waved his hand. "It's buttoned up."

"No umbilical cable for electronic control?" asked Heidi.

"Baby responds by remote sound impulses up to three miles under water," explained Gunn briefly.

"You call it Baby?"

"That's because it's usually wet," Pitt laughed.

"Men and their juvenile humor," she said, shaking her head.

Pitt turned to the well. "Diver in," he ordered.

A man encased in a thermal diving suit adjusted his face mask and slipped over the side. He guided the RSV as it was lowered into the well and released it when they both had fallen below the Venturer's keel.

"Now let's move along to the control room and see what's down there," Pitt said.

A few minutes later they were watching three different viewing screens, mounted horizontally. On the opposite side of the room several technicians studied dials and noted instrument readings on clipboards. Against another wall a bank of computers began recording the data transmissions.

A cheerful fat man with curly strawberry hair and freckles stippling his face grinned with a great flash of teeth as Pitt introduced him to Heidi.

"Doug Hoker, meet Heidi Milligan," Pitt said, dropping Heidi's naval rank. "Doug plays mother to Baby."

Hoker half rose out of his chair in front of a large console and shook her hand. "Always glad to have a beautiful audience."

She smiled at the compliment. "This is one opening I didn't want to miss."

Hoker turned back to his console and immediately became all business. "Passing eighty feet," he droned, his right hand on an aircraft control grip. "Water temperature thirty-four degrees."

"Circle Baby in from the stern," said Pitt.

"Acknowledged."

At 165 feet the river bottom appeared on the color video screens, a drab, washed-out brown, devoid of life except for an occasional crab and scattered bits of weed. Visibility under the RSV's high-intensity lights was little more than ten feet.

Gradually a dark shape began to grow from the top of the screen, slowly enlarging until its huge pintles could be clearly seen.

"Nice sense of direction," Pitt said to Hoker. "You laid it dead on the rudder."

"Something else coming up," Gunn announced. "The propeller, by the looks of it."

The four great bronze blades that once had driven the 14,000ton ship from Liverpool to Quebec on many crossings moved at a funereal pace past the camera eyes of the RSV.

"About twenty feet from tip to tip," Pitt judged. "Must weigh at least thirty tons."

"The Empress was a twin-screw vessel," said Heidi softly. "The one on the port side was salvaged in nineteen hundred and sixty-eight.

Pitt turned to Hoker. "Come up fifty feet and travel forward along the starboard boat deck."

Deep beneath their feet the little sub obeyed its impulse commands and swam over the stern railing, narrowly missing the staff that had once flown the ensign of the Empress' home port.

"The aft mast is down," Pitt said in a monotone. "The rigging appears to be gone."

Then the boat deck came into view. A few of the davits hung empty, but some still held steel lifeboats frozen for eternity in their chocks. The ventilators stood in silent agony, their buff colored paint long flaked away, but the two funnels had vanished, fallen decades before into the silt.

No one spoke for a few minutes. It was as though they could somehow reach into the past and sense the hundreds of frightened men, women and children milling the decks in confusion, helplessly feeling the ship sink beneath them with terrible swiftness.

Heidi's heart began to pound against her breast. There was a morbid aura about the scene. Seaweed, clinging to the rust eaten hulk, swayed eerily to and fro with the current. She shivered involuntarily and clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling. Finally Pitt broke the silence. "Take it inside." Hoker took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the nape of his neck.

"The two upper decks have collapsed," he murmured as if conversing in a church. "We can't penetrate."

Pitt spread the ship's interior drawings on a chart table and traced a line with his finger. "Drop down to the lower promenade deck. The first-class lobby entrance should be clear."

"Is Baby actually going to enter the ship?" Heidi asked.

"That's what it was designed for," replied Pitt.

"All those people dead in there. Somehow it almost seems sacrilegious."

"Men have been diving on the Empress for half a century," Gunn said gently, as though talking to a child. "The,museum at Rimouski is filled with artifacts taken from inside the wreck. Besides, it's imperative to see what we'll be up against when we begin cutting through-"

"I have penetration," Hoker interrupted.

"Take it slow," Pitt acknowledged. "The wooden ceilings have probably fallen and clogged the passageways."

For the next few seconds only the floating particles in the water showed on the monitors. Then the RSV's light source fell on a fan-shaped stairway. The curled lines of the banisters were still evident, held erect by sagging support columns. The Persian carpeting that had once graced the lower landing had long since rotted away, as had the chairs and sofas. "I think I can negotiate the aft passageway," said Hoker. "Make entry," Pitt instructed tersely.

The stateroom doorways marched by the cameras in wraithlike procession as the RSV threaded its way through the fallen rubble. After thirty feet the passageway looked clear and they made an inspection of a cabin. The luxurious comfort for which the ill-fated ship was famous had deteriorated into pitiful scraps. The spacious bunk-style beds and ornate dressers had long ago surrendered to the ravages of the callous waters.

The journey into time passed with agonizing slowness. It took nearly two hours for the RSV to break into a lounge area. "Where are we?" asked Gunn.

Pitt consulted the drawings again. "We should be coming on the entrance of the main dining saloon."

"Yes, there it is," Heidi pointed excitedly. "The large doorway to the right of the screen."

Pitt looked at Gunn. "It's worth checking out. According to the plans, Shields' cabin lies on the deck directly below."

The lights of the RSV played over the huge room, casting phantom shadows beyond the columns that supported the remains of the sculptured ceilings above the dining alcoves. Only the oval mirrors on the walls, their glass coated with decades of slime, bore mute testimony to the opulent decor that had once enhanced the passengers' dining pleasure.

Suddenly there was a movement on the fringe of the light beams. "What in hell is that?" blurted Gunn.

Spellbound, everyone in the control room started at the etheric cloud that floated into camera range.

For long moment it seemed to hover, the outer edges vague and wavering in slow motion. Then, as if encased within a milky translucent shroud, a human form reached out for the RSV, an indistinct, disembodied form like two photographic negatives overlaying one another and producing a double exposure.

Heidi fell silent; her blood turned to ice. Hoker sat like a chunk of granite at the console, his face dazed with disbelief Oddly, Gunn tilted his head to one side and studied the apparition with the clinical look of a surgeon contemplating an X-ray.

"In my wildest dreams," he said in a hoarse voice, "I never really thought I'd see a ghost."

Gunn's apparent composure didn't fool Pitt. He could see the little man was in a near state of shock. "Reverse Baby," he said calmly to Hoker.

Fighting a fear he had never experienced before, Hoker gathered his senses and moved his fingers over the controls. At first the undulating shape receded in the background, and then it began to grow larger again.

"Oh, lord, it's following," whispered Heidi.

A quick glance at the strained, stunned faces showed the same realization on every mind. They stood paralyzed, their attention transfixed on the monitors. "For God's sake, what is it doing?" rasped Gunn.

No one answered, no, one in the control room possessed the power of speech. No one except Pitt.

"Turn Baby around and get it out of there, fast!" he snapped.

Hoker forced himself to tear his eyes from the unearthly sight and pushed the power setting to FULL.

The little survey craft was not designed for speed. At maximum, its thrusters could only propel it at three knots. It began a tight turn. The cameras in the bow panned away from the undulating menace, past the open portholes glowing weirdly from the filtered light from the surface, past the faces of the mirrors that reflected no more. The 180-degree maneuver seemed to take an endless time.

And it came too late.

A second transparent specter drifted above the threshold of the doorway to the lounge, its shadowy arms outstretched and beckoning.

"Damn!" Pitt cursed. "Another one!"

"What should I do?" Hoker's voice was pleading, almost desperate.

It would be an understatement to say that Pitt held the undivided attention of everyone in the control room. They were awed by his glacial concentration. It was beginning to seep through to them why he was held in such high esteem by Admiral Sandecker. If ever a man was in the right place at the right time, it was Dirk Pitt standing on the deck of a salvage ship calling the shots against the unnatural.

Given a century, they could never have guessed the thought running through his mind. All they could detect from his expression was that anger had replaced studied contemplation.

If "Attack and be damned" worked with the phantom train, Pitt reasoned, there was little to lose by repeating the play. He nodded to Hoker.

"Ram the bastard!"

The mood abruptly changed now. Everyone took their strength from Pitt. Their fear gradually altered to growing determination to expose what their imaginations suggested were dead souls haunting the decaying ocean liner.

The RSV zeroed in and struck the spectral barrier in the doorway. There seemed to be no resistance at first. The blurred figure gave way, but then it floated forward and its shroud enveloped the craft. All focus was lost from the cameras and the monitors projected only vague shadows.

"It appears our hosts have substance," Pitt said conversationally.

"Baby is not responding to command," Hoker called out. "The controls react as if it's immersed in cooked oatmeal."

"Try reversing the thrusters."

"No go." Hoker shook his head. "Whatever those things are, they've immobilized it."

Pitt walked across to the control console and peered over Hoker's head at the instruments. "Why is the directional indicator vascillating?"

"It's like they're wrestling with Baby," answered Hoker. "Trying to drag it somewhere, I would guess."

Pitt gripped his shoulder. "Shut down all systems except the cameras.

"What about the lights?"

"Shut them down too. Let those heavy-handed ghosts think they've damaged Baby's power source."

The monitors dimmed until their screens showed only blackness. They looked cold and dead, but occasionally a faint, undefined movement showed through. If a stranger had walked into the control room he would have written everyone off as men tally incompetent; finding a group of people standing enraptured by dark TV screens was a psychologist's dream.

Ten minutes became twenty, and twenty became thirty. There was no change. Anticipation hung heavy in the air. Nothing and still nothing. Then very gradually, so gradually nobody noticed it at first, the screens began to lighten. "What do you make of it?" Pitt asked Hoker.

"No way of telling. Without power, I can't read the systems."

"Activate the instruments, but only long enough for the computers to record the data."

"You're talking in microseconds."

"Then go for it."

The dexterity in Hoker's index finger ran a poor second to the incomprehensible speed of the data system as he flicked the switch. The demand signals were received by the RSV and returned to the computers, which in turn relayed their readout across the digital dials on the console before the switch clicked to OFF.

"Position, four hundred meters, heading zero-twenty-seven degrees. Depth, thirteen meters."

"It's coming up," Gunn said.

"Surfacing about a quarter mile off our starboard stem," Hoker verified.

"I can make out color now," said Heidi. "A dark green becoming a deep blue."

The haze in front of the camera lenses began to shimmer. Then a bright orange glare burst from the video screens. Human forms could be distinguished now, blurred as though animated through a frosted window.

"We have sun," declared Hoker. "Baby is on the surface."

Without a word, Pitt ran from the room up a companionway to the bridge. He snatched a pair of binoculars hanging by the helm and aimed them across the river.

The sky was free of clouds and the late morning sun reflected off the waters. A light breeze came in from the sea and nudged the short furrows upriver. The only vessels in sight were a tanker steaming from the direction of Quebec and a fleet of five fishing boats to the northeast, fanned out on different headings. Gunn came up behind Pitt. "See anything?"

"No, I was too late," Pitt said shortly. "Baby is gone."

"Gone?"

"Perhaps kidnapped is a better word. Baby has probably been taken aboard one of those fishing boats out there." He paused and handed the glasses to Gunn. "My guess is the old blue trawler, or maybe the red one with the yellow wheelhouse. Their nets are hung so they block off all view of any activity on the far side of their decks."

Gunn stared silently across the water for a few moments. Then he lowered the binoculars. "Baby is a two-hundred thousand-dollar piece of equipment," he said angrily. "We've got to stop them."

"I'm afraid the Canadians would not take kindly to a foreign vessel forcibly boarding boats inside their territorial limits. Besides, we've got to keep a low profile on our operation. The last thing the President needs is a messy incident over a piece of gear that can be replaced at the expense of the taxpayers."

"It doesn't seem right," grumbled Gunn.

"We'll have to forget righteous indignation," said Pitt. "The problem we have to face is who and why. Were they simply thieving sport divers or persons with more relevant motives?"

"The cameras might tell us," said Gunn.

"They might at that," Pitt said with a faint smile. "Providing the kidnappers didn't pull Baby's plug."

There was a strange atmosphere in the control room when they returned, thick and acrid and almost electrical. Heidi was sitting in a chair shuddering; all color was drained from her face, her eyes were blank. A young computer technician had produced a glass of brandy and was coaxing her to drink it. She looked for all the world as if she'd seen her third ghost of the day.

Hoker and three other engineers were bent over a circuit panel, checking the rows of indicating lights gone dark, fruitlessly manipulating knobs and switches. It was obvious to Pitt that all communications with the RSV had gone dead.

Hoker looked up when he saw Pitt. "I've got something interesting to show you." Pitt nodded toward Heidi. "What's wrong with her?"

"She saw something that knocked hell out of her."

"On the monitors?"

"Just before transmission was cut off," Hoker explained. "Take a look while I replay the videotape." Pitt watched. Gunn came and stood beside him, staring. The darkened screens slowly lightened and once again they saw the RSV break into sunlight. The glare lessened and then flashed in several sequences.

"This is when Baby was lifted from the water," observed Pitt. "Yes," Hoker agreed. "Now catch the next action."

A series of distortion lines swept horizontally across the monitors, and then abruptly the left one blinked out.

"The clumsy nerds," Hoker complained bitterly. "They didn't know a delicate piece of gear when they saw it. They dropped Baby on its port camera and broke the color pickup tube."

At that moment the shroud was pulled back, coming into focus. The material could now be clearly seen for what it was.

"Plastic," exclaimed Gunn. "A thin sheet of opaque plastic.

"That explains the protoplasm," said Pitt. "And there are your neighborhood spooks."

Two figures in rubber diving suits knelt down and appeared to study the RSV.

"A pity we can't see their faces under the face masks," said Gunn.

"You'll see one soon enough," said Hoker. "Watch."

A pair of legs clad in Wellington boots and denim pants walked into camera range. Their owner stopped behind the divers and bent down and peered into the camera lenses.

He wore a British-style commando sweater with leather patches over the shoulders and elbows. A knit stocking cap was set at a casual side angle; graying hair along the temples was brushed fastidiously above the ears. He seemed to be in his late fifties, Pitt figured, or perhaps middle sixties. He had the look about him of a man who might be older than he appeared.

The face possessed a cruel, self-assured quality, found in men who are familiar with hazard. The dark eyes had the detached interest of a sniper peering through a telescopic sight at his impending victim.

Suddenly there was a slight, discernible widening of the eyes and the intense expression turned to anger. His mouth twisted with silent words and he spun quickly from view.

"I'm not a lip-reader," said Pitt, "but it looked as if he said 'You fools.'"

They remained, watching, as what looked like a canvas tarpaulin was thrown over the RSV and the monitors turned dark for the last time.

"That's all she wrote," said Hoker. "Contact was lost a minute later when they destroyed the transmission circuitry."

Heidi rose from the chair and moved forward as if she was in a trance. She pointed at the dead monitors, her lips quivering.

"I know him," she said, her voice barely audible. "The man in the picture…... I know who he is."

Dr. Otis Coli inserted a du Maurier cigarette in a gold-tipped filter, clamped it between his dentures and lit it. Then he resumed poking through the open access panel into the electronic heart of the RSV.

"Damned clever, the Americans," he said, impressed with what he saw. "I've read scientific papers on it, but never seen one up close."

Coli, director of the Quebec Institute of Marine Engineering, had been recruited by Henri Villon. He was a gorilla of a man, barrel-chested, and had a rounded, heavy-browed face. His white hair passed his collar, and his mustache, beneath a thin, sloping nose, looked as if it had been clipped with sheep shears.

Brian Shaw stood beside Coli, his face clouded with concern. "What do you make of it?"

"An ingenious bit of technology," said Coli in the tone of a young man engrossed in a Playboy foldout. "Visual data is translated and sent by ultrasonic sound waves to the mother ship where it is encoded and enhanced by computers. The resulting imagery is then transferred to videotape with rather amazing clarity."

"So what's the scam?" grunted Foss Gly. He perched boredly atop a rusty winch mounted on the blue fishing boat's foredeck.

Shaw fought to hold down his temper. "The scam, as you so apathetically put it, is that these cameras were transmitting pictures when you brought them on board. Not only have the people on the NUMA ship been alerted to the fact they're being watched, they also have our faces recorded on videotape."

"How does that concern us?"

"Their project director is probably whistling up a helicopter this minute," Shaw replied. "Before nightfall the tape will be in Washington. And by this time tomorrow they'll probably have identification."

"On you maybe," Gly said grinning. "My partner and I kept our face masks on. Remember?"

"The damage has been done. The Americans will know we're not local divers looting a wreck. They'll be aware of who and what they're up against and will take every precaution."

Gly shrugged and began unzipping his diving suit. "If that mechanical fish hadn't interrupted us, we could have laid the charges, blown the hulk and left them precious little to salvage."

"Bad luck on our part," said Shaw. "How far did you get?"

"We'd barely started when we saw lights coming from over the stern."

"Where are the explosives?"

"Still on the forecastle of the wreck, where we stored them."

"How many pounds?"

Gly thought a moment. "Harris and I made six trips each, towing two hundred-pound sealed containers."

"Twenty- four hundred pounds," Shaw totaled. He turned to Doc Coli. "What if we detonated?"

"Right now?"

"Right now."

"Weight for weight, Trisynol is three times as powerful as TNT." Coli paused to stare across the water at the Ocean Venturer. "The pressure waves from its explosion would break the back of the NUMA ship."

"And the Empress of Ireland?"

"Demolish the bow section and smash in the forepart of the superstructure. At that point the main force would be Absorbed. Further aft, a few bulkheads might buckle, a few decks cave in."

"But the central section of the wreck would remain intact."

"Quite correct," nodded Coli. "Your only accomplishment would be the mass death of innocent men."

"Little sense in pursuing that quarter," Shaw said thoughtfully.

"I'd certainly want no part in it."

"So. Where does that leave us?" asked Gly.

"For the moment, we tread softly," replied Shaw. "Sit back and observe, also find us another boat. The Americans are no doubt on to this one."

A look of contempt crossed Gly's face. "Is that the best you can come up with?"

"I'm satisfied. Unless you've got other ideas."

"I say blow the bastards to bits and end it now," Gly said coldly. "If you lack the stomach, old man, I'll do it."

"Enough!" Shaw snapped, his eyes fixed on Gly. "We're not at war with the Americans, and there is nothing in my instructions that condones murder. Only carnal idiots kill unnecessarily or wantonly. As for you, Inspector Gly, no more debates. You'll do as you're told."

Gly shrugged smugly in acquiescence and said nothing. He didn't have to waste words. What Shaw didn't know, what no one knew, was that he had inserted a radio detonator in one of the Trisynol containers.

With the press of a button he could set off the explosives anytime the mood struck him.

Mercier ate lunch with the President in the family dining room of the White House. He was thankful that his boss, unlike other chief executives, served up cocktails before five o'clock. The second Rob Roy tasted even better than the first, though it didn't exactly complement the Salisbury steak.

"The latest intelligence says the Russians have moved another division up to the Indian border. That makes ten, enough for an invasion force."

The President wolfed down a boiled potato. "The boys in the Kremlin burned their fingers by overrunning Afghanistan and Pakistan. And now they've got a full-fledged Muslim uprising on their hands that has spilled into Mother Russia. I wish they would invade India. It's more than we could hope for."

"We couldn't sit on the sidelines and not become militarily involved."

"Oh, we'd rattle our sabers and make fiery speeches in the United Nations denouncing another example of Communist aggression. Send a few aircraft carriers into the Indian Ocean. Launch another trade embargo."

Mercier picked at his salad. "In other words, the same reaction as we've always given. Stand by and watch-"

"- the Soviets dig their own grave," interrupted the President. "Marching on seven hundred million people who live in poverty would be like General Motors buying a vast welfare department. Believe me, the Russians would lose by winning."

Mercier did not agree with the President, but deep down he knew the nation's leader was probably right. He dropped the subject and turned to a problem closer to home.

"The Quebec referendum for total independence comes up next week. After going down to defeat in '80 and '86, it looks like the third time may be the lucky charm."

The President appeared unconcerned as he scooped up a forkful of peas. "If the French think full sovereignty leads to utopia, they're in for a rude awakening."

Mercier put out a feeler. "We could stop it with a show of force."

"You never give up, do you, Alan?"

"The honeymoon is over, Mr. President. It's only a question of time before congressional opposition and the news media begin labeling you an indecisive leader. The very opposite of what you promised during the campaign."

"All because I won't go to war over the Middle East or send troops into Canada?"

"There are other measures, less drastic, to show a determined front."

"There is no reason to lose one American life over a dwindling oil field in the desert. As for Canada, things will work themselves out."

Mercier came straight out with it. "Why do you want to see a divided Canada, Mr. President?"

The chief executive looked across the table at him coolly. "Is that what you think? That I want to see a neighboring country torn apart and turned into chaos?"

"What else am I to believe?"

"Believe in me, Alan." The President's expression turned cordial. "Believe in what I am about to do."

"How can I?" asked a confused Mercier, "when I don't know what it is?"

"The answer is simple," replied the President with a trace of sadness in his voice. "I'm making a desperate play to save a critically ill United States."

It had to be bad news. From the sour look on Harrison Moon's face, the President knew it couldn't be anything else. He laid aside the speech he was editing and sat back in his chair. "You look like a man with a problem, Harrison."

Moon laid a folder on the desk. "I'm afraid the British have tagged the game."

The President opened the file and found himself staring at an eight-by-ten glossy of a man who gazed back at the camera.

"This was just flown in from the Ocean Venturer," explained Moon. "An underwater survey vehicle was probing the wreck when it was ripped off by a pair of unknown divers. Before communications were broken, this face appeared on the monitors."

"Who is he?"

"For the last twenty-five years he's been living under the name of Brian Shaw. As you can see in the report, he's a former British secret agent. His record makes interesting reading. Achieved quite a bit of notoriety back in the fifties and early sixties. He became too well known to operate; couldn't step on the sidewalk without a Soviet agent from their SMERSH assassination unit waiting to cut him down. His cover, as they say in the intelligence circles, was blown. Forced his secluded retirement. Their secret service buried his old identity by listing him as killed on duty in the West Indies."

"How did you put a make on him so fast?"

"Commander Milligan is on board the Ocean Venturer. She recognized him from the monitors. The CIA tracked down his true identity in their files."

"She knew Shaw?" the President asked incredulously.

Moon nodded. "Met him at a party in Los Angeles a month ago."

"I thought she was shipped out to sea."

"A foul- up. It never occurred to anyone to check out the fact that her ship was ordered to lay over three days in Long Beach for modifications. Also, nothing was said about not allowing her on shore."

"Their meeting? Could it have been a setup?"

"Seems so. The FBI spotted Shaw when he arrived from Britain. A usual procedure when embassy staff members greet overseas visitors. Shaw was escorted to a plane bound for LA. There the party was thrown by Graham Humberly, a well known jet setter on the payroll of British intelligence."

"So Commander Milligan spilled her knowledge of the treaty.

Moon shrugged. "She had no instructions to keep her mouth shut."

"But how did they get wind of our knowledge of the treaty in the first place?"

"We don't know," Moon admitted.

The President read through the report on Shaw. "Odd that the British would trust an assignment of such magnitude to a man crowding seventy."

"At first glance it seems MI6 has given our treaty search low priority. But when you think about it, Shaw might well be the perfect choice to operate undercover. If Commander Milligan hadn't recognized his face, I doubt if we'd have tied him to British intelligence."

"Times have changed since Shaw was on the active list. He may be out of his element on this one."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Moon said. "The guy is no slouch. He's pegged us every step of the way."

The President sat very still for a moment. "It would appear that our neatly hatched concept has been penetrated."

"Yes, sir," Moon nodded somberly. "It's only a question of days, maybe hours, before the Ocean Venturer is ordered off the St. Lawrence. The stakes are too high for the British to gamble on us not finding the treaty."

"Then we write off the Empress of Ireland as a lost cause.

"Unless…..." Moon said as if thinking out loud. "Unless Dirk Pitt can find the treaty in what precious time he has left."

Pitt scanned the screens, which showed the salvage team going about their business on the hulk below. Like two moon creatures cavorting in slow motion, the JIM suits and their human occupants carefully placed the Pyroxpne on the upper superstructure. The men worked comfortably under the surface equal atmosphere within their articulated enclosures. While outside, the bodies of the scuba divers were squeezed by seventy-five pounds of pressure per square inch. Pitt turned to Doug Hoker, who was fine-tuning a monitor.

"Where's the submersible?"

Hoker turned and studied a chart unreeling from a sonar recorder. "The Sappho I is cruising twenty meters off the port bow of the Empress. Until we're ready to begin removing debris, I've ordered its crew to patrol a quarter-mile perimeter around the wreck."

"Good thinking," said Pitt. "Any sign of trespassers?"

"Negative."

"At least we'll be ready for them this time."

Hoker made a dubious gesture. "I can't give you a perfect detection system. Visibility is too lousy for the cameras to see very far."

"What about side-scan sonar?"

"Its transducers cover a three-hundred-sixty-degree spread for three hundred meters, but again, no guarantees. A man makes an awfully small target."

"Any surface ships prowling about?"

"An oil tanker passed by ten minutes ago," answered Hoker. "And what looks to be a tug with a trash barge under tow is approaching from upriver."

"Probably going to dump its load further out in the gulf," Pitt surmised. "Won't hurt to keep a sharp eye on it."

"Ready to burn," announced Rudi Gunn, who stood looking up at the monitors, a pair of earphones with an attached microphone clamped on his head.

"Okay, clear the divers off the site," ordered Pitt.

Heidi entered the control room wearing a tan corduroy jump suit, a tray with ten steaming coffee cups held carefully in front of her. She passed them around to the engineering crew, offering the last one to Pitt.

"Have I missed anything?" she asked.

"Perfect timing. We're going for the first burn. Keep your fingers crossed that we laid the right amount of Pyroxone in the right place."

"What will happen if you didn't?"

"Not enough, and We accomplish nothing. Too much in the wrong place, and half the side of the ship caves in, costing us days we can't afford. You might compare us with a wrecking crew which is demolishing a building floor by floor. Explosives have to be set in exact positions for the interior structure to collapse within a prescribed area."

"Flasher is set and counting," reported Gunn.

Pitt anticipated the question in Heidi's mind. "A flasher is an electronically timed incendiary device that ignites the Pyroxone."

"Divers are free of the ship and we are counting," said Gunn. "Ten seconds."

Everyone in the control room focused their eyes on the monitors. The countdown dragged by while they tensely awaited the results. Then Gunn's voice broke the heavy atmosphere.

"We are burning."

A bright glare engulfed the Empress of Ireland's starboard topside, and two ribbons of white incandescence curled out from the same source and raced around the deck and bulkheads, joining together and forming a huge circle of superheat. A curtain of steam burst above the fiery arc and swirled toward the surface.

Soon the framework in the center began to sag. It hung there for nearly a minute, refusing to give way. Then the Pyroxone melted the last tenacious bond and the aging steel fell silently inward and vanished onto the deck below, leaving an opening twenty feet in diameter. The molten rim of the ring turned red and then gray, hardening again under the relentless cold of the water.

"Looking good!" said Gunn excitedly.

Hoker threw his clipboard in the air and whooped. Then they all began laughing and applauding. The first burn, the crucial burn, was a critical success.

"Lower the grappling claw," Pitt said sharply. "Let's not waste a minute clearing that rubble out of there."

"I have a contact."

Not everyone's focus had been on the monitors. The shaggy haired man at the side-scan sonar recorder had kept his eyes on the readout chart. In three steps Pitt was behind him. "Can you identify?"

"No, sir. Distance is too great to enhance with any detail. Looked like something dropped off that barge passing to port."

"Did the target glide out on an angle?"

The sonar operator shook his head. "Dropped straight down."

"Doesn't read like a diver," said Pitt. "The crew probably heaved a bundle of scrap or weighted trash overboard."

"Shall I stay on it?"

"Yes, see if you can detect any movement." Pitt turned to Gunn. "Who's manning the submersible?"

Gunn had to think a moment. "Sid Klinger and Marv Powers."

"Sonar has a strange contact. I'd like them to make a pass over it." Gunn looked at him. "Think our callers might be back?"

"The reading is doubtful," Pitt shrugged. "But then, you never know."

As soon as he dropped over the side of the barge, Foss Gly swam straight to the bottom. Dragging an extra set of air tanks with him wasn't the easiest of chores, but he would need them for the return trip and the necessary decompression stops before he could resurface. He leveled off and hugged the riverbed, kicking his flippers with a lazy rhythm. He had a long way to go and much to do.