Текст книги "Raise the Titanic"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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    "That's your problem," Spencer said loftily. "You always go around looking up when you should be looking down."

    Pitt leaned over and picked up a sledgehammer that was lying among a pile of tools. "This should do the trick," he said casually, swinging the sledge against one of the Titanic's hull plates, sending a cacophony of echoes throughout the boiler room.

    Spencer dropped wearily onto a raised boiler grating. "They ain't going to believe this."

    "Oh I don't know," Pitt managed between swings. "Jungle telegraph. It always used to work in the Congo."

    "Giordino was probably right. Fatigue has queered our minds."

    Pitt ignored Spencer and kept hammering away. After a few minutes, he paused a moment to get a new grip on the sledge handle. "Let us hope and pray that one of the natives has his ear to the ground," he said between pants. And then he went on hammering.

    Of the two sonar operators who were on watch aboard the submarine Dragonfish, the one tuned into the passive listening system was leaning forward toward his panel, his head cocked to one side, his mind intent on analyzing the strange beat that emitted through the earphones. Then he gave a slight shake of his head and held up the earphones for the officer who was standing at his shoulder.

    "At first I thought it was a hammerhead shark," the sonarman said. "They make a funny pounding noise. But this has a definite metallic ring to it."

    The officer pressed the headset against one ear. Then his eyes took on a puzzled look. "It sounds like an SOS."

    "That's how I read it, sir. Someone is knocking out a distress call against their hull."

    "Where is it coming from?"

    The sonarman turned a miniature steering wheel that activated the sensors in the bow of the sub and eyed the panel in front of him. "The contact is three-zero-seven degrees, two thousand yards north of west. It has to be the Titanic, sir. With the departure of the Mikhail Kurkov, she's the only surface craft left in the area."

    The officer handed back the earphones, turned from the sonar compartment, and made his way up a wide curving stairway into the conning tower, the nerve center of the Dragonfish. He approached a medium-height, round-faced man with a graying mustache, who wore the oak leaves of a commander on his collar.

    "It's the Titanic all right, sir. She's hammering out an SOS."

    "There's no mistake?"

    "No, sir. The contact is firm." The officer paused and then asked, "Are we going to respond?"

    The commander looked thoughtful for a few moments. "Our orders were to deliver the SEAL and fend off the Mikhail Kurkov. We were also to remain obscure in case the Russians decide to make an end run with one of their own submarines. We'd be in poor position to protect the derelict if we were to surface and move off station."

    "During our last sighting, she looked to be in pretty rough shape. Maybe she's going down."

    "If that was the case, her crew would be screaming for help over every frequency on their radio-" The commander hesitated, his eyes narrowing. He stepped over to the radio room and leaned in.

    "What time was the last communication sent from the Titanic?"

    One of the radio operators scanned a sheet in a log book. "A few minutes shy of eighteen hundred hours yesterday, Commander. They requested an up-to-the-minute report of the hurricane's speed and direction."

    The commander nodded and turned back to the officer. "They haven't transmitted for over twelve hours. Could be their radio is out."

    "It's quite possible."

    "We'd better have a look," the commander said. "Up periscope."

    The periscope tubing hummed slowly into the raised position. The commander gripped the handles and stared through the eyepiece.

    "Looks quiet enough," he said. "She's got a heavy list to starboard and she's down by the bow, but not bad enough to be considered dangerous yet. No distress flags flying. No one in sight on her decks-wait a moment, I take that back. There's a man atop the bridgehouse roof." The commander increased the magnification. "Good lord!" he muttered. "It's a woman."

    The officer stared at him with a disbelieving expression. "You did say a woman, sir?"

    "See for yourself."

    The officer saw for himself. There was indeed a young blond woman above the Titanic's bridgehouse. She seemed to be waving a brassiere.

    Ten minutes later, the Dragonfish had surfaced and was lying under the shadow of the Titanic.

    Thirty minutes later, reserve fuel from the sub's auxiliary diesel engine was coursing through a pipe that arched across the still thrashing swells and passed neatly into a hastily cut hole in the Titanic's hull.

71

    "It's from the Dragonfish, " Admiral Kemper said, reading the latest in a long line of communications. "Her captain has sent a work party aboard the Titanic to assist Pitt and his salvage crew. He states that the derelict should remain afloat, even with numerous leaks, during the tow providing, of course, she's not struck by another hurricane."

    "Thank God for small favors," Marshall Collins exhaled between yawns.

    "He also reports," Kemper went on, "that Mrs. Seagram is on board the Titanic and is in rare stage form, whatever that means."

    Mel Donner moved out of the bathroom, a towel still draped over his arm. "Would you repeat that, Admiral?"

    "The captain of the Dragonfish says that Mrs. Dana Seagram is alive and well."

    Donner rushed over and shook Seagram, who was sleeping fitfully on the couch. "Gene! Wake up! They've found Dana! She's all right!"

    Seagram's eyes blinked open and for long seconds he looked up at Donner, astonishment slowly spreading across his face. "Dana . . . Dana is alive?"

    "Yes, she must have been on the Titanic during the storm."

    "But how did she get there?"

    "We don't know all the details yet. We'll just have to wait it out. But the important thing is that Dana is safe and the Titanic is still afloat."

    Seagram hung his head in his hands and sat there huddled and shrunken. He began sobbing quietly.

    Admiral Kemper was thankful for the distraction when a very tired Commander Keith entered and handed him another signal. "This one's from Admiral Sandecker," Kemper said. "I think you'll be interested in what he has to say, Mr. Nicholson."

    Warren Nicholson and Marshall Collins both eased away from Seagram and gathered around Kemper's desk.

    "Sandecker says, 'Visiting relatives have been entertained and furnished with guest bedroom. Got something in my eye during the party last night but enjoyed belting out good old song favorites like "Silver Threads among the Gold." Say hello to Cousin Warren and tell him I have a present to give him. Having wonderful time. Wish you were all here. Signed Sandecker'."

    "It seems the admiral has a strange way with words," said the President. "Just what in hell is it he's trying to get across?"

    Kemper stared at him sheepishly. "The Russians apparently boarded during the eye of the hurricane."

    "Apparently, " the President said icily.

    "'Silver Threads among the Gold'," Nicholson said excitedly. "Silver and Gold. They've caught the two espionage agents."

    "And your present, Cousin Warren," Collins said, grinning with every tooth, "must be none other than Captain Andre Prevlov."

    "It's imperative that I get on board the derelict as soon as possible," Nicholson said to Kemper. "How soon can you arrange transportation for me, Admiral?"

    Kemper's hand was already reaching for the phone. "Inside thirty minutes I can have you on a Navy jet that will land you on the Beecher's Island. From there you can take a helicopter to the Titanic. "

    The President stepped over to a large window and gazed out at the rising sun as it crept above the eastern horizon and fingered its rays across the lazy waters of the Potomac. He yawned a long comfortable yawn.

72

    Dana leaned over the forward railing of the Titanic's bridge and closed her eyes. The ocean breeze whipped her honey hair and tingled the skin on her upturned face. She felt soothed and free and completely relaxed. It was as though she were flying.

    She knew now that she could never go back and slip into the painted puppet that had been the Dana Seagram of two days ago. She had made up her mind she would divorce Gene. Nothing between them mattered any more, at least to her. The girl he had loved was dead, never to return. She reveled in the knowledge. It was her rebirth. To begin again, start fresh with no holds barred.

    "A dollar for your thoughts."

    She opened her eyes and was greeted by the grinning and freshly shaven face of Dirk Pitt.

    "A dollar? I thought it used to be a penny."

    "Inflation strikes everything, sooner or later."

    They stood for a while without saying anything and watched the Wallace and the Morse as they strained at the great leash that led to the Titanic's bow. Chief Bascom and his men were checking the tow cable and dabbing grease to the fair-lead to ease the chafing. The chief looked up and waved to them.

    "I wish this voyage would never end," Dana murmured as they both waved back. "It's so strange and yet so wonderful." She turned suddenly and laid her hand on his. "Promise me we'll never see New York. Promise me that we'll sail on forever, like the Flying Dutchman."

    "We'll sail on forever."

    She flung her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his. "Dirk, Dirk!" she whispered urgently. "Nothing makes any sense any more. I want you. I want you now, and I don't really know why."

    "It's because of where you are," Pitt said quietly.

    He took her by the hand and led her down the grand staircase and into one of the two parlour suite bedrooms on B Deck. "There you are, madame. The finest suite of rooms on the entire ship. Cost for a one-way voyage came to better than four thousand dollars. Those were, of course, 1912 prices. However, in honor of the light in your eyes, I'll provide you with a handsome discount." He swept her up and carried her to the bed. It had been cleaned of the slime and rot and was covered with several blankets.

    Dana , looked at the bed with wise eyes. "You prepared this?"

    "Let's just say that like the little old ant who moved the rubber tree plant, I had high hopes."

    "You know what you are?"

    "A bastard, a lecher, a satyr– I could think of a dozen apt descriptions."

    She looked at him with a secret, womanly smile. "No, you're none of those. Even a satyr would not have been so thoughtful."

    He pulled her lips to his and kissed her so hard she moaned.

    Her performance in bed fooled him. He expected a body that would merely give response. Instead, he found himself merged with thrashing, undulating waves of flesh, piercing screams that he muffled with his hands, nails that dug oozing red trenches in his back, and finally soft, wet sobbings into his neck. He couldn't help wondering if all wives blossom with such abandon when they make love for the first time with someone other than their husbands. The storm lasted for nearly an hour, and the humid perfume of sweating skin began to soak the air of that old rotted, ghostly bedroom.

    Finally she pushed him away and sat up. She raised her knees and hunched herself over them, feet crossed. "How was I?"

    "Like a spastic tiger," Pitt said.

    "I didn't know it could be like this."

    "I wish I had a dime for every girl who said those very same words every time she turned on."

    "You don't know what it's like to have your guts churning in both agony and delight at the same time."

    "I dare say I don't. A woman's release burns from the inside. A man's erotic senses are mostly exterior. Anyway you look at it, sex is a female's game."

    "What do you know about the President?" she suddenly asked in a soft nostalgic tone.

    Pitt looked at her in amused surprise. "The President? What made you think of him at a time like this?"

    "I hear he's a real man."

    "I couldn't say. I've never slept with him."

    She ignored his remark. "If we had a woman President and she wanted to make love to you, what would you do?"

    "My country right or wrong," Pitt said. "Where is all this talk leading?"

    "Just answer the question. Would you go to bed with her?"

    "Depends?"

    "On what?"

    "President or not, I couldn't make my gun stand at attention if she was seventy, fat, and had skin like a prune. That's why men never make good prostitutes."

    Dana smiled slowly and closed her eyes. "Make love to me again."

    "Why? So you can let your imagination run wild and fancy that you're being laid by our Commander-in-Chief?"

    Her eyes narrowed. "Does that bother you?"

    "Two can play the same game. I'll just pretend that you're Ashley Fleming."

73

    Prevlov looked up from his huddled position on the floor of stateroom C-95 as the SEAL guarding the passageway outside turned the newly oiled lock and swung the door open. The SEAL, his M-24 held at the ready, visually checked Prevlov, and then stepped aside to allow another man to enter.

    He was carrying an attaché case and wore a business suit that begged to be pressed. A faint smile crossed his lips as Prevlov studied him with a speculative gaze of surprised Recognition.

    "Captain Prevlov, I am Warren Nicholson."

    "I know," Prevlov said as he uncoiled to his feet and gave a very correct half-bow. "I was not prepared to entertain the Chief Director of the Central Intelligence Agency himself. At least not under these rather awkward circumstances."

    "I've come personally to escort you to the United States."

    "I am flattered."

    "It is we who are flattered, Captain Prevlov. You are considered a very big catch indeed."

    "Then it is to be an internationally publicized trial, complete with grave accusations against my government for attempted piracy on the high seas."

    Nicholson smiled again. "No, except for a few high-ranking members of your government and mine, I'm afraid your defection will remain a well-kept secret."

    Prevlov squinted. "Defection?" This was clearly not what he had expected.

    Nicholson nodded without answering.

    "There is no method by which you can make me willingly defect," Prevlov said grimly. "I shall deny it at every opportunity."

    "A noble gesture." Nicholson shrugged. "However, since there will be no trial and no interrogation, a request for political asylum becomes your only escape clause."

    "You said, 'no interrogation.' I must accuse you of lying, Mr. Nicholson. No good intelligence service would ever pass up the chance of prying out the knowledge a man of my position could provide them."

    "What knowledge?" Nicholson said. "You can't tell us anything that we don't already know."

    Prevlov's mind was off-balance. Perspective, he thought. He must gain a perspective. There was only one way the Americans could have gained possession of the mass of Soviet intelligence secrets that were locked away in the files in his office in Moscow. The middle of the puzzle was incomplete, but the borders were neatly locked into place. He met Nicholson's steady gaze and spoke quietly. "Lieutenant Marganin is one of your people." It was more statement than question.

    "Yes." Nicholson nodded. "His name is Harry Koskoski, and he was born in Newark, New Jersey."

    "Not possible," Prevlov said. "I personally checked every phase of Pavel Marganin's life. He was born and raised in Komsomolsk-na-Amure. His family were tailors."

    "True, the real Marganin was a native Russian."

    "Then your man is a double, a plant?"

    "We arranged it four years ago when one of your Kashin class missile destroyers exploded and sank in the Indian Ocean. Marganin was one of the few survivors. He was discovered in the water by an Exxon oil tanker, but died shortly before the ship docked in Honolulu. It was a rare opportunity, and we had to work fast. Of all our Russian speaking agents, Koskoski came the closest to Marganin's physical features. We surgically altered his face to make it look as though it had been disfigured in the explosion and then airlifted him to a small, out-of-the-way island two hundred miles from where your ship sank. When our bogus Soviet seaman was finally discovered by native fishermen and returned to Russia, he was delirious and suffering from an acute attack of amnesia."

    "I know the rest," Prevlov said solemnly. "We not only repaired his face through plastic surgery to that of the Genuine Marganin, but we re-educated him to his own personal history as well."

    "That's pretty much the story."

    "A brilliant coup, Mr. Nicholson."

    "Coming from one of the most respected men in Soviet intelligence, I consider that a rare compliment indeed."

    "Then this whole scheme to place me on the Titanic was hatched by the CIA and carried through by Marganin."

    "Koskoski, alias Marganin, was certain you would accept the plan, and you did."

    Prevlov gazed at the deck. He might have known, he might have guessed, should have been suspicious from the beginning that Marganin was slowly and intricately positioning his neck on the headman's block. He should never have fallen for it, never, but his vanity had been his downfall, and he accepted it.

    "Where does this all lead?" Prevlov asked bleakly.

    "By now Marganin has produced solid proof of your-if you'll pardon the expression-traitorous activities and has also proven, aided by planted evidence, that you intended for the Titanic mission to fail from the start. You see, Captain, the trail leading to your defection has been carefully mapped for nearly two years. You yourself helped matters considerably with your fondness for expensive refinements.  Your superiors can draw but one conclusion from your actions, you sold out for a very high price."

    "And if I deny it?"

    "Who would believe you? I venture to say that your name is already on the Soviet liquidation list."

    "Then what's to become of me now?"

    "You have two choices. One, we can set you free after a proper period of time."

    "I wouldn't last a week. I am well aware of the KGB assassin network."

    "Your second choice is to cooperate with us." Nicholson paused, hesitated, then looked directly at Prevlov. "You're a brilliant man, Captain, the best in your field. We don't like to let good brains go to waste. I don't have to paint you a picture of your value to the Western intelligence community. That's why it's my intention to set you up in charge of a new task force. A line of work you should find right up your alley."

    "I suppose I should be grateful for that," Prevlov said dryly.

    "Your facial appearance will be altered, of course. You'll get a cram course in English and American idioms along with our history, sports, music, and entertainment. In the end, there won't be the slightest trace of your former shell for the KGB to home in on."

    Interest began to form in Prevlov's eyes.

    "Your salary will be forty thousand a year, plus expenses and a car."

    "Forty thousand dollars?" Prevlov asked, trying to sound casual.

    "That will buy quite a bit of Bombay Gin." Nicholson grinned like a wolf sitting down to dinner with a wary rabbit. "I think that if you really try, Captain Prevlov, you might come to enjoy the pleasures of our Western-style decadence. Don't you agree?"

    Prevlov said nothing for several moments. But the choice was obvious constant fear versus a long and pleasurable life. "You win, Nicholson."

    Nicholson shook hands and was mildly surprised to see tears welling in Prevlov's eyes.

74

    The final hours of the long tow brought a clear and sunny sky with a wandering wind that gently nudged the long ocean swells shoreward and brushed their green curving backs.

    Ever since dawn, four Coast Guard ships had been busy riding herd on the huge fleet of pleasure craft that darted in and out vying for a closer look at the sea-worn decks and superstructure of the hulk.

    High over the crowded waters, hordes of light aircraft and helicopters swarmed like hornets, their pilots jockeying to give photographers and cameramen the perfect angle from which to shoot the Titanic.

    From five thousand feet higher, the still listing ship looked like a macabre carcass that was under attack from all sides by armadas of gnats and white ants.

    The Thomas J. Morse reeled in her tow wire from the bow of the Samuel R. Wallace and fell back to the derelict's stem, here she attached a hawser and then eased astern to assist steering the unwieldy bulk through the Verrazano Narrows and up the East River to the old Brooklyn Navy Yard. Several harbor tugs also appeared and stood by to lend hand, if called upon, when Commander Butera gave orders to shorten the main tow cable to two hundred yards.

    The pilot boat arrived within inches of the bulwarks of the Wallace and the pilot leaped aboard. Then it passed on by and thumped against the rusty plates of the Titanic, separated only by worn truck tires that hung along the smaller boat's freeboard. Within half a minute, the New York Harbor Chief Pilot had clutched a rope ladder and was scrambling up to the cargo deck.

    Pitt and Sandecker greeted him and then led the way up to the port bridge wing, where the chief pilot placed both hands on the railing as though he were part of it and solemnly nodded for the tow to carry on. Pitt waved and Butera punched his whistle in reply. Then the tug commander ordered "slow ahead" and aimed the bow of the Wallace into the main channel under the Verrazano Bridge that arches from Long Island to Staten Island.

    As the strange convoy probed its nose into Upper New York Bay, Butera began pacing from one side of the tug's bridge to the other, studying the hulk, the wind and the current, and the tow cable with the dedication of a brain surgeon who is about to perform a delicate operation.

    Since the night before, thousands of people had lined the waterfront. Manhattan had come to a standstill, streets emptied and office buildings suddenly became silent, as workers crowded the windows in hushed awe as the tow crawled up the harbor.

    On the shore of Staten Island, Peter Hull, a reporter from The New York Times, began his story:

    Ghosts do exist. I know, I saw one in the mists of morning. Like some grotesque phantom that had been rejected from hell, she passed before my unbelieving eyes. Surrounded by the invisible pall of bygone tragedy, shrouded in the souls of her dead, she was truly an awesome relic from a past age. You could not lay your eyes upon her and not sense pride and sorrow together ....

    A CBS commentator expressed a more journalistic view "The Titanic completed her maiden voyage today, seventy-six years after departing the dock at Southampton, England . . . ." By noon the Titanic was edging past the Statue of Liberty and a vast sea of spectators on the Battery. No one on shore spoke above a whisper, and the city became strangely silent; only an occasional toot from a taxi horn gave any hint of normal activity. It was as though the whole of New York City had been picked up and placed in a vast cathedral.

    Many of the watchers wept openly. Among them were three of the passengers who had survived the tragic night so long ago. The air seemed heavy and hard to breathe. Most people, describing their feelings later, were surprised to recall nothing but an odd sense of numbness, as though they had been temporarily paralyzed and struck dumb. Most that is, except a rugged fireman by the name of Arthur Mooney.

    Mooney was the captain of one of the New York Harbor fireboats. A big, mischief-eyed Irishman born of the city, and a seagoing fire-eater for nineteen years. He slammed a massive fist against the binnacle and shook off the spell. Then he shouted to his crew.

    "Up off your asses, boys. You're not department store dummies." His voice carried into every corner of the boat. Mooney hardly ever required the services of a bullhorn. "This here's a ship arrivin' on her maiden voyage, ain't she? Then let's show her a good old-fashioned traditional New York welcome."

    "But skipper," a crew member protested, "it's not like she was the QE II or the Normandie comin' up the channel for the first time. That thing is nothin' but a wasted hulk, a ship of the dead."

    "Wasted hulk, your ass," Mooney shouted. "That ship you see there is the most famous liner of all time. So she's a little delapidated, and she's arrivin' a tad late. So who gives a damn? Turn on the hoses and hit the siren."

    It was a re-enactment of the Titanic's raising all over again, but on a much grander scale. As the water spouted in great sheets over Mooney's fireboat, and his boat whistle reverberated off the city's skyscrapers, another fireboat followed his example, and another. Then whistles on docked freighters began to scream. Then the horns of cars lined up along the shores of New Jersey, Manhattan, and Brooklyn joined the outpouring of noise followed by the cheers and yells from a million throats.

    What had begun with the insignificant shrill of a single whistle now built and built until it was a thunderous bedlam of sound that shook the ground and rattled every window in the city. It was a moment that echoed across every ocean of the world.

    The Titanic had made port.

75

    Thousands of greeters jammed the dock where the Titanic was tied up. The swarming antlike mass was made up of newspeople, national dignitaries, cordons of harried policemen, and a multitude of uninvited who climbed the shipyard fence. Any attempt at security was futile.

    A battery of reporters and cameramen stormed up the makeshift gangplank and surrounded Admiral Sandecker, who stood like a victorious Caesar, on the steps of the main staircase rising from the reception room on D Deck.

    This was Sandecker's big moment and a team of wild horses couldn't have dragged him off the Titanic this day. He never missed an opportunity to snatch good publicity in the name of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, and this was one occasion where he was going to milk every line of newsprint, every second of national television, for all they were worth. He enthralled the reporters with highly colored exploits of the salvage crew and stared at the mobile camera units, and smiled and smiled and smiled. The Admiral was in his own paradise.

    Pitt could have cared less about the fanfare; his idea of paradise at the moment was a shower and a clean, soft bed. He pushed his way down the gangplank to the dock and melted into the crowd. He thought he'd almost gotten clear when a TV commentator rushed forward and thrust a microphone under his nose.

    "Hey, fella, are you a member of the Titanic's salvage crew?"

    "No, I work for the shipyard," Pitt said, waving like a yokel at the camera.

    The commentator's face fell. "Cut it, Joe," he yelled to his cameraman. "We grabbed a bummer." Then he turned and moved his way toward the ship, shouting for the crowd to keep their feet off his mike cord.

    Six blocks, and a whole half-hour later, Pitt finally found a cab driver who was more interested in hauling a fare than in ogling the derelict.

    "Where to?" the driver asked.

    Pitt hesitated, looking down at his grimly, sweat-stained shirt and pants under the torn and just as grimy windbreaker. He didn't need a mirror to see the bloodshot eyes and five o'clock shadow. He could easily imagine himself as the perfect reflection of a Bowery wino. But then he figured, what the hell, he'd just stepped off what was once the most prestigious ocean liner in the world.

    "What's the most luxurious and expensive hotel in town?"

    "The Pierre, on Fifth Avenue and Sixty-first, ain't cheap.

    "The Pierre it is then."

    The driver looked over his shoulder, studied Pitt, and wrinkled his nose. Then he shrugged and pulled into the traffic. He took less than a half hour to reach the curb in front of the Pierre, overlooking Central Park.

    Pitt paid off the cabby and walked through the revolving doors and up to the desk.

    The clerk gave him a look of disgust that was a classic. "I'm sorry, sir," he said haughtily before Pitt could open his mouth. "We're all filled up."

    Pitt knew it would only be a matter of minutes before a mob of reporters discovered his whereabouts if he gave his real name. He wasn't ready to face the ordeal of celebrity status yet. All he wanted was uninterrupted sIeep.

    "I am not what I appear," Pitt said, trying to sound indignant. "I happen to be Professor R. Malcolm Smythe, author and archaeologist. I have just stepped off the plane after a four-month dig up the Amazon, and I haven't had time to change. My man will be here shortly with my luggage from the airport."

    The desk clerk was instantly transformed into peaches and cream. "Oh, I am sorry, Professor Smythe, I didn't recognize you. However, we're still filled up. The city is crowded with people who came to see the arrival of the Titanic. I'm sure you understand."

    It was a masterful performance. He didn't buy Pitt or one word of his fanciful tale.

    "I'll vouch for the professor," said a voice behind Pitt. "Give him your best suite and charge it to this address."

    A card was thrown on the counter. The desk clerk picked it up and read it and lit up like a roman candle. Then with a flourish he laid a registration card before Pitt and produced a room key as if by sleight of hand.

    Pitt slowly turned and met a face that was every bit as worn and haggard as his. The lips were turned up in a crooked smile of understanding, but the eyes were dulled with the lost and vacant stare of a zombie. It was Gene Seagram.

    "How did you track me down so fast?" Pitt asked. He was lying in a bathtub nursing a vodka on the rocks. Seagram sat across the bathroom on the john.

    "No great exercise in intuition," he said. "I saw you leave the shipyard and followed you."