"Leonard Hudson!" he snapped. "Where can I find him?"
Fear shone from her eyes like twin spotlights. She tilted her head to the right. "Th-the office w-with the blue d-door," she stammered.
"Thank you very much," he said with a broad smile.
Hagen released the girl and walked swiftly through the hushed complex. His face was twisted with malevolence, as if daring anyone to stop him.
No one made the slightest attempt. The growing crowd of people parted like the Red Sea as he passed down a main aisle.
When he came to the blue door, Hagen stopped and turned around, surveying the brain trust and communications center of the Jersey Colony program. He had to admire Hudson. It was an imaginative cover. Excavated during the construction of the shopping center, it would have attracted little or no suspicion. The scientists, engineers, and secretaries could come and go amid the shoppers, and their cars simply melted into hundreds of others in the parking lot. The radio station was also a work of genius.
Who would suspect they were transmitting and receiving messages from the moon while broadcasting Top 40 records to the surrounding college community.
Hagen pushed inside the door and entered what seemed to be a studio control booth.
Hudson and Eriksen sat with their backs to him, staring up at a large video monitor that reflected the face and shaven head of a man who stopped speaking in midsentence and then said, "Who is that man behind you?"
Hudson made a cursory glance over his shoulder. "Hello, Ira." The voice mirrored the eyes. Hagen could almost hear the cracking of ice cubes. "I wondered when you'd show up."
"Come in," said Eriksen in an equally frigid tone. "You're just in time to talk to our man on the moon."
<<40>>
Pitt had cleared Cuban waters and was well into the main shipping lane of the Bahama Channel. But his luck was running out. The only ships that came within sight failed to spot him. A large tanker flying the Panamanian flag steamed by no more than a mile away. He stood as high as he dared without tipping over the tub and waved his shirt, but his little vessel went unnoticed by the crew.
For a watch officer on the bridge to aim his binoculars at the precise spot at the precise instant when the bathtub rose out of a trough and climbed the crest of a swell before dropping from sight again was a bet no self-respecting bookie would make. The awful truth plagued Pitt, he made too small a target.
Pitt's movements were becoming mechanical. His legs had gone numb after rolling around the sea in the cramped bathtub for nearly twenty hours, and the constant friction of his buttocks against the hard surface had raised painful blisters. The tropical sun beat on him, but he wore a good tan and the least of his problems was sunburn.
The sea remained calm, but still it was a continuous effort to keep the bow of the tub straight into the swells and bail out the water at the same time. He had emptied the final drops from the fuel cans into the outboard motor before refilling them with seawater for ballast.
Another fifteen or twenty minutes, that was all he could expect the motor to keep running before it starved for gas. Then it would be all over. Without control, the tub would soon swamp and sink.
His mind began to slip away-- he hadn't slept in thirty-six hours. He fought to stay awake, steering and bailing with leaden arms and water-wrinkled hands. For hour after endless hour his eyes swept the horizon, seeing nothing that was traveling toward his tiny area of the sea. A few sharks had bumped the bottom of the slow-moving tub. One made the mistake of coming too close to the spinning propeller and got his fin chewed up. Pitt eyed them with a detached air. He dumbly planned to beat them out of a meal by opening his mouth and drowning, before realizing it was a stupid thought and brushing it aside.
The wind gently began to rise. A squall passed overhead and deposited an inch of water in the tub. It wasn't the cleanest, but it was better than nothing. He scooped up a few handfuls and gratefully gulped it down, feeling refreshed.
Pitt looked up at the shimmering horizon to the west. Night would fall in another hour. His last spark of hope was dying with the setting sun. Even if he somehow kept afloat, he could never be seen in the darkness.
Hindsight, he mused. If only he'd stolen a flashlight.
Suddenly, the outboard sputtered and then caught again. He slowed the throttle as much as he dared, knowing he was only pushing off the inevitable by a minute or two.
Pitt fought off the cloud of morale collapse and steeled himself to bail until his arms gave out or a wave struck the drifting, helpless little tub on the beam and swamped her. He emptied one of the gas cans of seawater. When the tub sank, he reasoned, he would use the can as a float. So long as he could move a muscle, he wasn't about to give up.
The faithful little outboard coughed once, twice, and then died. After hearing the beat of the exhaust since the night before, Pitt felt smothered by the abrupt silence. He sat there in a doomed little craft on a vast and indifferent sea under a clear and cloudless sky.
He kept her afloat for another hour into the twilight. He was so tired, so physically exhausted that he missed a small movement five hundred yards away.
Commander Kermit Fulton pulled back from the periscope eyepiece, his face wearing a questioning expression. He looked across the control room of the attack submarine Denver at his executive officer.
"Any contact on our sensors?"
The exec spoke into one of the control room phones. "Nothing on radar, skipper. Sonar reports a small contact, but it stopped about a minute ago."
"What do they make of it?"
The answer was slow in coming and the question was repeated.
"Sonar says it sounded like a small outboard motor, no more than twenty horsepower."
"There's something mighty peculiar out there," said Fulton. "I want to check it out. Slow speed to one-third and come left five degrees."
He pressed his forehead against the periscope eyepiece again and increased the magnification. Slowly, wonderingly, he pulled back. "Give the order to surface."
"You see something?" asked the executive officer.
He nodded silently.
Everyone in the control room stared at Fulton expectantly. The exec took the initiative. "Mind letting us in on it, skipper?"
"Twenty-three years at sea," said Fulton, "and I thought I'd seen almost everything. But damned if there isn't a man up there, almost a hundred miles from the nearest land, floating in a bathtub."
<<41>>
Since the blimp's disappearance, Admiral Sandecker had rarely left his office. He buried himself in work that soon lost all meaning. His parents, though quite elderly, were still alive, and so were his brother and sister. Sandecker had never really tasted personal tragedy before.
During his years in the Navy, he was infected with dedication. There was little time for a deep relationship with a woman, and he counted few good friends, mostly Navy acquaintances. He built a wall around him between superiors and subordinates and walked the middle ground. He made flag rank before he was fifty, but he was stagnating.
When Congress approved his appointment as chief of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, he came back to life. He formed warm friendships with three unlikely people, who looked up to him with respect but treated him no differently than the man on the next bar stool.
The challenges facing NUMA had drawn them together. Al Giordino, an extrovert who took a strange glee in volunteering for the dirtiest projects and stealing Sandecker's expensive cigars. Rudi Gunn, driven to accomplish nothing less than perfection, a natural at organizing programs, who couldn't make an enemy if he tried. And then there was Pitt, who had done more than anyone to revive Sandecker's creative spirit. They soon became as close as father and son.
Pitt's freewheeling attitude toward life and his sarcastic wit trailed behind him like a comet's tail. He couldn't enter a room without livening it up. Sandecker tried but failed to blot out the memories, to unchain himself from the past. He leaned back in the desk chair and closed his eyes and gave
in to the sorrow. To lose all three of them at one time stunned him beyond comprehension.
While Pitt was in his thoughts, the light blinked and a muted chime came from his private phone line.
He massaged his temples briefly and picked up the receiver.
"Yes?"
"Jim, is that you? I got your private number from a mutual friend at the Pentagon."
"I'm sorry. My mind was wandering. I don't recognize the voice."
"This is Clyde. Clyde Monfort."
Sandecker tensed. "Clyde, what's up?"
"A signal from one of our attack subs returning from the Jamaican landing exercise just came across my desk."
"How does that concern me?"
"The sub's commander report's picking up a castaway no more than twenty minutes ago. Not exactly standard procedure for our nuclear sub forces to take strangers on board, but his guy claimed he worked for you and got pretty nasty when the skipper refused to allow him to send a message."
"Pitt!"
"You got it," answered Monfort. "That's the name he gave. Dirk Pitt. How'd you know?"
"Thank God!"
"Does he check out?"
"Yes, yes, he's bona fide," Sandecker said impatiently. "What about the others?"
"No others. Pitt was alone in a bathtub."
"Say again."
"The skipper swears it was a bathtub with an outboard motor."
Knowing Pitt, Sandecker didn't doubt the story for a second. "How soon can you have him picked up by helicopter and dropped at the nearest airfield for transport to Washington?"
"You know that's not possible, Jim. I can't have him cleared and released until after the sub docks at its base in Charleston."
"Hang on, Clyde. I'll call the White House on another line and get the authorization."
"You got that kind of clout?" Monfort asked incredulously.
"That and more."
"Can you tell me what's going down, Jim?"
"Take my word for it. You don't want to get involved."
They gathered at a White House dinner party to honor the Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, who was on a goodwill tour of the United States. Actors and labor leaders, athletes and billionaires, they all shed their opinions, their differences, and mingled like neighbors at a Sunday social.
Former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter conversed and acted as though they had never left the West Wing. Standing in a corner filled with flowers, Secretary of State Douglas Oates swapped war stories with Henry Kissinger, while the Super Bowl champion quarterback of the Houston Oilers stood in front of the fireplace and peered openly at the breasts of ABC news anchor Sandra Malone.
The President shared a toast with Prime Minister Gandhi and then introduced him to Charles Murphy, who had recently flown over Antarctica in a hot-air balloon. The President's wife came over, took her husband's arm, and pulled him toward the dance floor of the state dining room.
A White House aide caught Dan Fawcett's eye and nodded toward the doorway. Fawcett went over, heard him out, then approached the President. The chain of command was well oiled.
"My apologies, Mr. President, but a courier has just arrived with a congressional bill that requires your signature before midnight."
The President nodded in understanding. There was no bill to sign. It was a code for an urgent message. He excused himself to his wife and went across the hall to a small private office. He paused until Fawcett closed the door before picking up the phone
"This is the President."
"Admiral Sandecker, sir."
"Yes, Admiral, what is it?"
"I have the Chief of Naval Forces in the Caribbean on another line. He has just informed me that one of my people, who vanished with Jessie LeBaron, has been rescued by one of our submarines."
"Has he been identified?"
"It's Dirk Pitt."
"The man must be either indestructible or very lucky," the President said with a touch of relief in his voice. "How soon can we get him here?"
"Admiral Clyde Monfort is holding on the line for authorization to provide priority transport."
"Can you connect me to him?"
"Hold on, sir." There was a second's pause followed by a click.
The President said, "Admiral Monfort, can you hear me?"
"I hear you."
"This is the President. Do you recognize my voice?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
"I want Pitt in Washington as fast as you can possibly get him here. Understood?"
"I read you, Mr. President. I'll see that a Navy jet lands him at Andrews Air Force Base before daybreak."
"Spread a security net on this affair, Admiral. Keep the submarine at sea and place the pilots, or anyone else who comes within a hundred yards of Pitt, under confinement for three days."
There was a slight hesitation. "Your orders will be carried out."
"Thank you. Now please let me speak to Admiral Sandecker."
"I'm here, Mr. President."
"You heard? Admiral Monfort will have Pitt at Andrews before dawn."
"I'll personally be on hand to meet him."
"Good. Take him by helicopter to CIA headquarters in Langley. Martin Brogan and representatives from my office and the State Department will be waiting to debrief him."
"He may not be able to shed light on anything."
"You're probably right," said the President wearily. "I'm expecting too much. I guess I always expect too much."
He hung up and sighed heavily. He collected his thoughts for a moment and then shelved them in a mental niche for later retrieval, a technique mastered sooner or later by every President. Shifting the mind from crisis to trivial routine and back again to crisis like the flick of alight switch was a requirement that went with the job.
Fawcett knew the President's every mood and patiently waited. Finally he said, "It might not be a bad idea if I attended the debriefing."
The President looked up at him sadly. "You'll be going with me to Camp David at sunup."
Fawcett looked blank. "I have nothing on your schedule that includes a trip to Camp David. Most of the morning is taken up by meetings with congressional leaders over the proposed budget."
"They will have to wait. I have a more important conference tomorrow.
"As your chief of staff may I ask who you're conferring with?"
"A group of men who call themselves the ìnner core.' "
Fawcett stared at the President, his mouth slowly tightening. "I don't understand."
"You should, Dan. You're one of them."
Before a dazed Fawcett could reply, the President left the office and rejoined the dinner party.
<<42>>
The thump of the landing wheels woke Pitt up. Outside the twin-engined Navy jet the sky was still dark. Through a small window he could see the first streaks of orange spearheading the new day.
The blisters caused by the friction from the bathtub made sitting almost impossible, and he had slept in a cramped position on his side. He felt generally awful, and he was thirsty for something besides the fruit juices forced down his stomach in endless quantities by an overly concerned doctor on the submarine.
He wondered what he would do if he ever met up with Foss Gly again. Whatever fiendish punishment he created in his mind didn't seem excessive enough. The thought of the agony Gly was inflicting on Jessie, Giordino, and Gunn haunted him. He felt guilty for having escaped.
The whine of the jet engines faded and the door was opened. He walked stiffly down the stairs and was embraced by Sandecker. The admiral rarely shook hands, and the unexpected display of affection surprised Pitt.
"I guess what they say about a bad penny is true," said Sandecker hoarsely, groping for words.
"Better to turn up than not," Pitt replied, smiling.
Sandecker took him by the arm and led him over to a waiting car. "They're waiting at CIA headquarters in Langley to question you."
Pitt suddenly stopped. "They're alive," he announ
ced briefly.
"Alive?" said Sandecker, stunned. "All of them?"
"Imprisoned by the Russians and tortured by a defector."
Incomprehension showed on Sandecker's face. "You were in Cuba?"
"On one of the outer islands," Pitt explained. "We've got to apprise the Russians of my rescue as quickly as possible to stop them from--"
"Slow down," Sandecker interrupted. "I'm losing you. Better yet, wait and tell the whole story when we get to Langley. I suspect you may have fallen in the creek and come up with a pocketful of trout."
On the flight across the city it began to rain. Pitt gazed through the plexiglass windshield at the 219
wooded acres surrounding the sprawling gray marble and concrete structure that was the home of America's cloak-and-dagger army. From the air it seemed deserted, no people were visible on the grounds. Even the parking lot was only one quarter full. The only human shape Pitt could detect was a statue of the nation's most famous spy, Nathan Hale, who had made the mistake of getting caught and was hanged.
Two senior officials were waiting at the helipad with umbrellas. Everyone hurried into the building, and Pitt and Sandecker were shown into a large conference room. There were six men and one woman present. Martin Brogan came over and shook Pitt's hand and introduced the others. Pitt simply nodded and promptly forgot their names.
Brogan said, "I hear you've had a rough trip."
"Not one I'd recommend to tourists," Pitt replied.
"Can I get you something to eat or drink?" Brogan offered graciously. "A cup of coffee or breakfast maybe?"
"If you could find a bottle of cold beer. . ."
"Of course." Brogan picked up the phone and said something. "Be here in a minute."
The conference room was plain by business-office standards. The walls were a neutral beige color, the carpet the same, and the furniture looked as though it came from a discount store. No pictures, no decorations of any kind gave it life. A room whose only function was to serve as a place to work.