Текст книги "Dragon"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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While he was lost in his thoughts, Giordino walked to the rear of the aircraft and sat down next to him. “You look beat, my friend.”

Pitt stretched. “I’ll be glad to get home.”

Giordino could read Pitt’s mood and adroitly steered the talk to his friend’s antique and classic car collection. “What are you working on?”

“You mean which car?”

Giordino nodded. “The Packard or the Marmon?”

“Neither,” replied Pitt. “Before we left for the Pacific, I rebuilt the engine for the Stutz but didn’t install it.”

“That nineteen thirty-two green town car?”

“The same.”

“We’re coming home two months early. Just under the wire for you to enter the classic car races at Richmond.”

“Two days away,” Pitt said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I can have the car ready in time.”

“Let me give you a hand,” Giordino offered. “Together we’ll put the old green bomb on the starting line.”

Pitt’s expression turned skeptical. “We may not get the chance. Something’s going down, Al. When the admiral clams up, the cow chips are about to strike the windmill.”

Giordino’s lips curled in a taut smile. “I tried to pump him too.”

“And?”

“I’ve had more productive conversations with fence posts.”

“The only crumb he dropped,” said Pitt, “was that after we land we go directly to the Federal Headquarters Building.”

Giordino looked puzzled. “I’ve never heard of a Federal Headquarters Building in Washington.”

“Neither have I,” said Pitt, his green eyes sharp and challenging. “Another reason why I think we’re being had.”

21

IF PITT THOUGHT they were about to be danced around the maypole, he knew it after laying eyes on the Federal Headquarters Building.

The unmarked van with no side windows that picked them up at Andrews Air Force Base turned off Constitution Avenue, passed a secondhand dress store, went down a grimy alley, and stopped at the steps of a shabby six-story brick building behind a parking lot. Pitt judged the foundation was laid in the 1930s.

The entire structure appeared in disrepair. Several windows were boarded shut behind broken glass, the black paint around the wrought-iron balconies was peeling away, the bricks were worn and deeply scarred, and for a finishing touch an unwashed bum sprawled on the cracked concrete steps beside a cardboard box full of indescribably mangy artifacts.

The two federal agents who escorted them from Hawaii led the way up the steps into the lobby. They ignored the homeless derelict, while Sandecker and Giordino merely gave him a fleeting glance. Most women would have looked upon the poor man with either compassion or disgust, but Stacy nodded and offered him a faint smile.

Pitt, curious, stopped and said, “Nice day for a tan.”

The derelict, a black man in his late thirties, looked up. “You blind, man? What’d I do with a tan?”

Pitt recognized the sharp eyes of a professional observer, who dissected every square centimeter of Pitt’s hands, clothes, body, and face, in that order. They were definitely not the vacant eyes of a down-and-out street dweller.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Pitt answered in a neighborly tone. “It might come in handy when you take your pension and move to Bermuda.”

The bum smiled, flashing unblemished white teeth. “Have a safe stay, my man.”

“I’ll try,” Pitt said, amused at the odd reply. He stepped past the disguised first ring of protection sentry and followed the others into the building’s lobby.

The interior was as run down as the exterior. There was the unpleasant smell of disinfectant. The green tile floors were badly treadworn and the walls stark and smudged with years of overlaid handprints. The only object in the dingy lobby that seemed well maintained was an antique mail drop. The solid brass glinted under the dusty light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, and the American eagle above the words “U.S. Mail” was as shiny as the day it was buffed out of its casting. Pitt thought it a curious contrast.

An old elevator door slid open soundlessly. The men from NUMA were surprised to find a gleaming chrome interior and a U.S. marine in dress blues who was the operator. Pitt noted that Stacy acted as though she’d been through the drill before.

Pitt was the last one in, seeing his tired red eyes and the grizzly beginnings of a beard reflected in the polished chrome walls. The marine closed the doors, and the elevator moved with an eerie silence. Pitt could not feel any movement at all. No flashing lights over the door or on a display panel indicated the passing floors. Only his inner ear told him they were traveling very rapidly down a considerable distance.

At last the door opened onto a foyer and corridor that was so clean and orderly it would have done a spit-and-polish ship captain proud. The federal agents guided them to the second doorway from the elevator and stood aside. The group passed through a space between the outer and an inner door, which Pitt and Giordino immediately recognized as an air lock to make the room soundproof. As the second door was closed, air was pushed out with an audible pop.

Pitt found himself standing in a place with no secrets, an enormous conference room with a low ceiling, so dead to outside sounds the recessed fluorescent light tubes buzzed like wasps, and a whisper could be heard ten meters away. There were no shadows anywhere, and normal voice levels came almost like shouts. The center of the room held a massive old library table once purchased by Eleanor Roosevelt for the White House. It fairly reeked of furniture polish. A bowl of Jonathan apples made up the centerpiece. Underneath the table lay a fine old blood-red Persian carpet.

Stacy walked to the opposite side of the table. A man rose and kissed her lightly on the cheek, greeting her in a voice laced with a Texas accent. He looked young, at least six or seven years younger than Pitt. Stacy made no effort to introduce him. She and Pitt had not spoken a word to each other since boarding the Gulfstream jet in Hawaii. She made an awkward display of pretending he was not present by keeping her back turned to him.

Two men with Asian features sat together next to Stacy’s friend. They were conversing in low tones and didn’t bother to look up as Pitt and Giordino stood surveying the room. A Harvard type, wearing a suit with a vest adorned with a Phi Beta Kappa key on a watch chain, sat off by himself reading through a file of papers.

Sandecker set a course to a chair beside the head of the table, sat down, and lit one of his custom-rolled Havana cigars. He saw that Pitt seemed disturbed and restless, traits definitely out of character.

A thin older man with shoulder-length hair and holding a pipe walked over. “Which one of you is Dirk Pitt?”

“I am,” Pitt acknowledged.

“Frank Mancuso,” the stranger said, extending his hand. “I’m told we’ll be working together.”

“You’re one up on me,” Pitt said, returning a firm shake and introducing Giordino. “My friend here, Al Giordino, and I are in the dark.”

“We’ve been gathered to set up a MAIT.”

“A what?”

“MAIT, an acronym for Multi-Agency Investigative Team.”

“Oh, God,” Pitt moaned. “I don’t need this. I only want to go home, pour a tequila on the rocks, and fall into bed.”

Before he could expand on his grievances, Raymond Jordan entered the conference room accompanied by two men who wore faces with all the humor of patients just told by a doctor they had Borneo jungle fungus of the liver. Jordan made straight for Sandecker and greeted him warmly.

“Good to see you, Jim. I deeply appreciate your cooperation in this mess. I know it was a blow to lose your project.”

“NUMA will build another,” Sandecker stated in his usual cocksure way.

Jordan sat down at the head of the table. His deputies took chairs close by and laid out several document files on the table in front of him.

Jordan did not relax once he was seated. He sat stiffly, his spine not touching the backrest of the chair. His composed dark eyes moved swiftly from face to face as if trying to read everyone’s thoughts. Then he addressed himself directly to Pitt, Giordino, and Mancuso, who were still standing.

“Gentlemen, would you care to get comfortable?”

There was silence for a few moments as Jordan spread the files before him in order. The atmosphere was reflective and heavy with the kind of tension and concern that brought about ulcers.

Pitt sat expressionless, his mind elsewhere. He was not mentally geared for heavy talk, and his body was tired from the strain of the last two days. What he desperately wanted was a hot shower and eight hours of sleep, but he forced himself to go along for the ride out of respect for the admiral, who was, after all, his boss.

“I apologize,”

Jordan began, “for any inconvenience that I may have caused, but I’m afraid we are dealing with a critical emergency that can affect the security of our nation.” He paused to peer down at the personnel files on the desk in front of him. “A few of you know me and some of you have worked with me in the past. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Giordino, I have you at a disadvantage as I know something about you and you know very little about me.”

“Try zilch,” Giordino challenged him, avoiding Sandecker’s angry stare.

“I’m sorry,” said Jordan graciously. “My name is Ray Jordan, and I am empowered by direct presidential order to direct and manage all matters of national security, both foreign and domestic. The operation we’re about to launch covers both sides. To explain the situation and your presence here, I will turn this discussion over to my Deputy Director of Operations, Mr. Donald Kern.”

Kern was bony-thin, small, and lean. His intensely cool bluegreen eyes seemed to reach into everyone’s inner thoughts. All, that is, except Pitt’s. It was as if two bullets had met in midair, neither passing through the other, both stopped dead.

“First off,” Kern opened in a surprisingly deep voice while still trying to read Pitt, “we are all about to become part of a new federal organization consisting of investigators, specialists, support personnel, case review analysts, and field agents assembled for the purpose of defusing a serious threat to a great number of people here and around the world. In short, a MAIT team.” He pressed one of several buttons on a desk console and turned to one wall that was back-lit and displayed an organizational chart. There was a circle at the top and a larger one beneath. Four smaller circles extended from the bottom one like spider legs.

“The top circle represents the Command Center here in Washington,” he lectured. “The lower one is our Information Gathering and Collection Point on the Pacific island of Koror in the Palau Republic chain. The Resident, who will act as our Director of Field Operations, is Mel Penner.” He stopped and glanced pointedly at Penner, who had entered the room with him and Jordan,

Penner nodded a red corduroy-wrinkled face and lazily raised a hand. He neither looked around the table at the others nor smiled.

“Mel’s cover is acting as a UCLA sociologist studying native culture,” Kern added.

“Mel comes cheap.” Jordan smiled. “His home and office furnishings include a sleeping cot, a phone, a document shredder, and a work desk that also serves as a dining table and a counter for his hotplate.”

Bully for Mel, Pitt thought to himself, fighting to stay awake while half wondering why they took so long to state a case.

“Our teams will carry code names,” Kern carried on. “The code will be different makes of automobiles. For example, we at Central Command will be known as ‘Team Lincoln.’ Mel Penner is ‘Team Chrysler.’ ” He paused to tap the appropriate circles on the chart before carrying on. “Mr. Marvin Showalter, who by the way is Assistant Director of Security for the U.S. Department of State, will work out of our embassy in Tokyo and handle any diplomatic problems from the Japanese end. His team code is ‘Cadillac.’ “

Showalter stood, fingered his Phi Beta Kappa key, and bowed his head. “A pleasure to work with you all,” he said politely.

“Marv, you’ll inform your critical personnel that our MAIT operatives will be in the field should they spot what may appear to be unauthorized activity. I do not want our situation compromised through embassy cable traffic.”

“I’ll see to it,” Showalter promised.

Kern turned to Stacy and the bearded man sitting next to her. “Miss Stacy Fox and Dr. Timothy Weatherhill, for those of you who haven’t been introduced, will head the domestic end of the investigation. Their cover will be as journalist and photographer for the Denver Tribune. They will be ‘Team Buick.’ ” Next he motioned at the two men of Asian ancestry. ” ‘Team Honda’ consists of Mr. Roy Orita and Mr. James Hanamura. They’re in charge of the most critical phase of the investigation—Japan proper.

“Before Don continues the briefing,” said Jordan, “are there any questions?”

“How do we communicate?” asked Weatherhill.

“Reach out and touch someone,” answered Kern. “Telephone behavior is routine and does not arouse suspicion.” He touched another button on the console, and a series of digits appeared on the screen. “Memorize this number. We’ll give you a safe line that will be monitored twenty-four hours a day by an operator who is fully briefed and knows where to reach any of us at any given moment.”

“I might add,” said Jordan, “that you must check in every seventy-two hours. If you miss, somebody will be dispatched immediately to find you.”

Pitt, who was balancing his chair on the rear legs, held up a hand. “I have a question.”

“Mr. Pitt?”

“I’d be most grateful if someone will please tell me just what in hell is going on around here.”

There was a moment’s frozen and incredulous silence. Predictably, everyone around the table with the exception of Giordino stared at Pitt in narrow-eyed disapproval.

Jordan turned to Sandecker, who shook his head and said testily, “As you requested, Dirk and Al were not informed of the situation.

Jordan nodded. “I’ve been remiss by not having you gentlemen briefed. The fault is mine. Forgive me, gentlemen. You have been treated most shabbily after all you’ve been through.”

Pitt gave Jordan a penetrating gaze. “Were you behind the operation to spy on NUMA’s mining colony?”

Jordan hesitated, then said, “We don’t spy, Mr. Pitt, we observe, and yes, I gave the order. A British ocean survey team happened to be working in the Northern Pacific, and they cooperated by moving their operation into your area.”

“And the surface explosion that blew away the British ship and crew and triggered the earthquake that leveled eight years of intense research and effort, was that your idea too?”

“No, that was an unforeseen tragedy.”

“Maybe I missed something,” Pitt said harshly. “But I had this crazy idea that we were on the same side.”

“We are, Mr. Pitt, I assure you,” Jordan answered quietly. He nodded at Admiral Sandecker. “Your facility, Soggy Acres as’ you called it, was built under such tight secrecy that none of our intelligence agencies were aware that it was authorized.”

Pitt cut him short. “So when you got wind of the project, your nose was bent out of joint and you had to investigate.”

Jordan was not used to being on the defensive, yet he did not meet Pitt’s stare. “What’s done is done. I regret the tragic loss of so many people, but we cannot entirely be blamed for putting our operatives in an unfortunate position at the wrong time. We had no advance warning of a Japanese auto transport that was smuggling nuclear bombs across the ocean, nor could we predict those bombs would accidentally explode almost on top of two innocent ships and your mining colony.”

For a moment Pitt was stunned by the revelation, then his surprise was gone as quickly as it came. Pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. He stared at Sandecker and sensed hurt as he spoke. “You knew, Admiral, you knew before you left Washington and said nothing. The Tucsonwasn’t on station to rescue Plunkett and me. It was there to record radioactivity and search for debris.”

It was one of the few times Pitt and Giordino ever witnessed Sandecker redden with chagrin. “The President asked that I be sworn to secrecy,” he said slowly. “I’ve never lied to you, Dirk, but I had no choice but to remain mute.”

Pitt felt sorry for the admiral, he knew it must have been difficult to be evasive with two close friends, but he made no effort to disguise his resentment of Jordan. “Why are we here?” he demanded.

“The President has personally approved of the selection of each individual to the team,” replied Jordan. “You all have a background and expertise that is indispensable for the success of this operation. The admiral and Mr. Giordino will put together a project to search the ocean floor and salvage any evidence from the ship that blew up. For the record, their code is ‘Mercedes.’ “

Pitt’s tired eyes squinted at Jordan steadily. “You only half answered the question.”

Jordan obliged him by saying, “I’m coming to it. You and Mr. Mancuso, who I believe you met, will act as a support team.”

“Support for what?”

“For the phase of the operation that requires an underground or underwater search.”

“When and where?”

“Yet to be determined.”

“And our code name?”

Jordan stared at Kern, who shuffled through a file of papers and then shook his head. “They haven’t been assigned one yet.”

“May the condemned create their own code?” asked Pitt.

Jordan exchanged looks with Kern, and then shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

Pitt smiled at Mancuso. “You have a preference?”

Mancuso lowered the pipe from his lips. “I leave it to you,” he said affably.

“Then we’ll be ‘Team Stutz.’

Jordan cocked his head. “I beg your pardon.”

“I never heard of it,” growled Kern.

“Stutz,” Pitt pronounced distinctly. “One of America’s finest classic automobiles, built from nineteen eleven until nineteen thirty-five in Indianapolis, Indiana.”

“I like it.” Mancuso nodded agreeably.

Kern squinted at Pitt, and his eyes took on a ferrety look. “You don’t strike me as taking this operation seriously.”

Jordan made an acquiescent shrug. “Whatever makes them happy.”

“Okay,” Pitt said steadily, “now that vital item of the agenda is settled, I’m going to get up and walk out of here.” He paused to read the orange dial on his old Doxa dive watch. “I was dragged here against my will. I’ve slept three hours out of the last forty-eight, and only eaten one meal in that time. I have to go to the bathroom. And I still don’t know what’s going down. Your plainclothes security guards and your detachment of marines can stop me, of course, but then I might get hurt and can’t play on the team. Oh, yes, there is one other point that no one has thought toy bring up.”

“What point is that?” asked Kern, his anger rising.

“I don’t recall that Al and I were officially requested to volunteer.”

Kern acted as if he’d swallowed a jalapeno pepper. “What are you talking about, volunteer?”

“You know, one who offers himself for a service of his own free will,” Pitt defined stonily. He turned to Giordino. “Were you formally invited to the party, Al?”

“Not unless my invitation was lost in the mail.”

Pitt stared defiantly into Jordan’s eyes as he spoke. “That’s the old ball game.” Then he turned to Sandecker. “Sorry, Admiral.”

“Shall we go?” said Giordino.

“Yes, let’s.”

“You can’t walk out,” Kern said with deadly seriousness. “You’re under contract to the government.”

“I’m not under contract to play secret agent.” Pitt’s voice was calm, quite unperturbed. “And unless there’s been a revolution since we’ve returned from the bottom of the sea, this is still a free country.”

“One moment, please,” said Jordan, wisely accepting Pitt’s viewpoint.

Jordan held an incredible range of power, and he was used to holding the whip hand. But he was also very astute and knew when to drift with the current, even if it flowed upstream. He stared at Pitt with curious interest. He saw no hatred, no arrogance, only a weary man who had been pushed too far. He had studied the file on NUMA’s Special Projects Director. Pitt’s background read like an adventure tale. His accomplishments were celebrated and honored. Jordan was smart enough not to antagonize a man he was damned lucky to have on the team.

“Mr. Pitt, if you will be patient a few more minutes I will tell you what you need to know. Some details will remain classified. I don’t think it wise you and certain people present at this table should have full knowledge of the situation. I don’t care a damn myself, but it is for your protection. Do you understand’?”

Pitt nodded. “I’m listening.”

“Japan has the bomb,” the chief of the National Security Service revealed. “How long they’ve had it or how many they’ve built is unknown. Given their advanced nuclear technology, Japan has had the capability to build warheads for over a decade. And despite their highly touted adherence to the nonproliferation treaty, someone or some group within their power structure decided they needed a deterrent force for its blackmail value. What little we know comes after the fact. A Japanese ship carrying Murmoto automobiles and two or more nuclear devices detonated in the middle of the Pacific, taking a Norwegian passenger-cargo liner and the British survey ship and their crews with her. Why were nuclear bombs on a Jap ship’? They were smuggling them into American ports. For what purpose? Probably nuclear extortion. Japan may have the bomb, but she doesn’t have a missile force or the long-range bombers to deliver it. So what would we do in their shoes to protect a financial power structure that reaches into every pocket of every country of the world? We smuggle nuclear weapons into any nation or combination of nations such as Europe that pose a threat to our economic empire and hide them in strategic locations. Then, if a particular country, say the U.S., gets mad after our Japanese leaders attempt to dictate policy to the White House and Congress and the business community, the Americans retaliate by refusing to pay back hundreds of billions of dollars loaned to their Treasury by our Japanese banks. They also threaten boycotts and trade barriers on all Japanese goods. Extreme measures that Senator Diaz and Congresswoman Loren Smith are proposing over at the Capitol as we speak. And maybe, just maybe, if the President gets riled up enough, he orders his superior military forces to blockade the Japanese islands, cutting off all our oil and vital raw materials, shutting down all our production. Follow me so far?”

Pitt nodded. “I’m with you.”

“This backlash scenario is not farfetched, especially when the American people will someday realize they work one month out of the year to pay off debts owed to foreign, for the most part Japanese, creditors. Are the Japs worried? Not when they have the power to push buttons and blow up any city in the world in time for the six o’clock news. Why are we here? To stop them by finding where the bombs are hidden. And stop them before they discover we’re onto them. That’s where Team Buick comes in. Stacy is an operative with the National Security Agency. Timothy is a nuclear scientist who specializes in radioactivity detection, Team Honda, led by James and Roy, agents, will concentrate on discovering and the command center that controls the detonations. Is this frightening nightmare? Absolutely. The lives of five hundred million people in nations that compete with Japan depend on what we around this table can accomplish in the next few weeks. In a wisdom bred more of ignorance, our State Department does not allow us covert observation of friendly nations. As the front line of this nation’s early warning system, we are forced to run in the shadows and die in obscurity. The alarm bells are about to be rung, and believe it or not, Mr. Pitt, this MAIT team is the last resort before a full-scale disaster. Do you get the picture?”

“Yes…” Pitt said slowly. “Thank you, Mr. Jordan. I get the picture.”

“Now will you officially join the team?”

Pitt rose, and to the astonishment of everyone present except Giordino and Sandecker, he said, “I’ll think it over.”

And then he left the room.

As he walked down the steps into the alley beside the squalid old building, Pitt turned and gazed up at the dingy walls and boarded windows. He shook his head in wonderment, then looked down at the security guard in the ragged clothes sprawled on the steps and muttered to himself, “So that’s the eyes and ears of the great republic.”

Jordan and Sandecker remained in the conference room after the others had filed out.

The crusty little admiral looked at Jordan and smiled faintly. “Do you mind my cigar?”

Jordan made a look of distaste. “A little late in asking, aren’t you, Jim?”

“Nasty habit.” Sandecker nodded. “But I don’t mind blowing smoke on someone, especially when they hard-ass my people. And that’s exactly what you were doing, Ray, hard-assing Pitt and Giordino.”

“You know damn well we’re in a state of crisis,” said Jordan seriously. “We don’t have time to cater to prima donnas.”

Sandecker’s face clouded. He pointed to Pitt’s packet that was on the top of the stack before Jordan. “You didn’t do your homework, or you’d know that Dirk Pitt is a bigger patriot than you and I put together. Few men have accomplished more for their country. There are few of his breed left. He still whistles ‘Yankee Doodle’ in the shower and believes a handshake is a contract and man’s word is his bond. He can also be devious as the devil if he thinks he’s helping preserve the Stars and Stripes, the American family, and baseball.”

“If he knows the urgency of the situation,” said Jordan, puzzled, “why did he stall and cut out?”

Sandecker looked at him, then looked at the organization chart on the backlit screen where Kern had written in “Tea Stutz.”

“You badly underestimated Dirk,” he said almost sadly. “You don’t know, you couldn’t know, he’s probably brewing up scheme to reinforce your operation this minute.”

22

PITT DID NOT GO directly to the old aircraft hangar on the edge of Washington’s International Airport that he called home. He gave Giordino a set of instructions and sent him off in a cab.

He walked up Constitution Avenue until he came to a Japanese restaurant. He asked for a quiet booth in the corner, sat down, and ordered. Between the clear clam soup and a medley of sashimi raw fish, he left the table and walked to a pay phone outside the rest rooms.

He took a small address book from his wallet and flipped through the phone numbers until he found the one he was looking for, Dr. Percival Nash (Payload Percy), Chevy Chase, Maryland. Nash was Pitt’s uncle on his mother’s side. The family character, Nash often bragged how he used to spike Dirk’s baby formula with sherry. Pitt inserted the change and dialed the number under the name.

He waited patiently through six rings, hoping Nash was in. He was, answering half a second before Pitt was about to hang up.

“Dr. Nash here,” came a youthful resonant voice (he was crowding eighty-two).

“Uncle Percy, this is Dirk.”

“Oh, my goodness, Dirk. About time I heard your voice. You haven’t called your old uncle in five months.”

“Four,” Pitt corrected him. “I’ve been on an overseas project.”

“How’s my beautiful sister and that dirty old politician she married? They never call me either.”

“I haven’t been over to the house yet, but judging from their letters, Mom and the senator are as testy as ever.”

“What about you, nephew? Are you in good health?”

“Fit and ready to race you around Marinda Park.”

“You remember that, do you? You couldn’t have been much older than six at the time.”

“How could I forget? Every time I’d try and pass, you’d throw me in the bushes.”

Nash laughed like the jolly man that he was. “Never try to better your elders. We like to think we’re smarter than you kids.”

“That’s why I need your help, and was wondering if you could meet me at the NUMA Building. I need to pick your brain.”

“On what subject?”

“Nuclear reactors for race cars.”

Nash knew instantly Pitt was dodging the real issue over the telephone. “When?” he asked without hesitation.

“As soon as convenient.”

“An hour okay?”

“An hour will be fine,” said Pitt.

“Where are you now?”

“Eating Japanese sashimi.”

Nash groaned. “Ghastly stuff. God only knows what pollutants and chemicals fish swim through.”

“Tastes good, though.”

“I’m going to speak to your mother. She didn’t raise y right.”

“See you in an hour, Percy.”

Pitt hung up and went back to his table. Hungry as he was, he barely touched the sashimi. He idly wondered if one of the smuggled bombs might be buried under the floor of the restaurant.

Pitt took a cab to the ten-story NUMA Building. He paid the driver and gazed briefly up at the emerald-green solar glass that covered the walls and ended in a curving pyramidal spire at the top. No lover of the classical look of the capital’s government buildings, Admiral Sandecker wanted a sleek contemporary look, and he got it. The lobby was an atrium surrounded by waterfalls and aquariums filled with exotic sea life. A huge globe rose from off the center of the sea-green marble floor, contoured with the geological furrows and ridges of every sea, large lake, and primary river on the earth.

Pitt entered an empty elevator and pressed the button marked 10. He skipped his fourth-floor office and rode up to the communications and information network on the top level. Here was the brain center of NUMA, a storehouse of every scrap of information ever recorded on the oceans—scientific, historical, fiction, or nonfiction. It was in this vast room of computers and memory cores where Sandecker spent a goodly percentage of NUMA’s budget, a constant source of criticism from a small company of his enemies in Congress. Yet this great electronic library had saved enormous sums of money on hundreds of projects, led the way to numerous important discoveries, and helped avert several national disasters that were never reported in the news media.

The man behind this formidable data supermarket was Hiram Yaeger.

“Brilliant” was the compliment most often paid to Yaeger’s mind, while “rumpled” distinguished his appearance. With his graying blond hair tied in a long ponytail, a braided beard, granny spectacles, and frayed, patched Levi’s, Yaeger exuded the aura of a hippie relic. Strangely, he had never been one. He was a decorated, three-tour Vietnam veteran who served as a Navy SEAL. If he had remained in computer design in California and launched his own company, he might have eventually headed a booming corporation and become a very wealthy man. But Yaeger cared nothing for being an entrepreneur. He was a class-act paradox, and one of Pitt’s favorite people.