Текст книги "Deep Six"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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21

A mad flapping of wings broke the early morning stillness as two pheasants broke toward the sky. Soviet President Georgi Antonov snapped the over-and-under Purdey shotgun to his shoulder and pulled the two triggers in quick succession. The twin blasts echoed through the mist-dampened forest. One of the birds suddenly stopped flying and fell to the ground.

Vladimir Polevoi, head of the Committee for State Security, waited an instant until he was sure Antonov had missed the second pheasant before he brought it down with one shot.

Antonov fixed his KGB director with a hard-eyed stare. “Showing up your boss again, Vladimir?”

Polevoi read Antonov’s mock anger correctly. “Your shot was difficult, Comrade President. Mine was quite easy.”

“You should have joined the Foreign Ministry instead of the Secret Police,” Antonov said, laughing. “Your diplomacy ranks with Gromyko’s.” He paused and looked around the forest. “Where is our French host?”

“President L’Estrange is seventy meters to our left.” Polevoi’s statement was punctuated by a volley of gunshots somewhere out of sight beyond the undergrowth.

“Good,” grunted Antonov. “We can have a few minutes of conversation.” He held out the Purdey to Polevoi, who replaced the empty shells and clicked the safety switch.

Polevoi moved in close and spoke in a low tone. “I would caution about speaking too freely. French intelligence has listening probes everywhere.”

“Secrets seldom last long these days,” Antonov said with a sigh.

Polevoi cracked a knowing smile. “Yes, our operatives recorded the meeting between L’Estrange and his Finance Minister last night.”

“Any revelations I should know about?”

“Nothing of value. Most of their conversation centered on persuading you to accept the American President’s financial assistance program.”

“If they’re stupid enough to believe I would not take advantage of the President’s naive generosity, they’re also stupid enough to think I agreed to fly here to discuss it.”

“Rest assured, the French are completely unaware of the true nature of your visit.”

“Any late word from New York?”

“Only that Huckleberry Finn exceeded our projections.” Polevoi’s Russian tongue pronounced Huckleberry as Gulkleberry.

“And all goes well?”

“The trip is under way.”

“So the old bitch accomplished what we thought was impossible.”

“The mystery is how she managed it.”

Antonov stared at him. “We don’t know?”

“No, sir. She refused to take us into her confidence. Her son shielded her operation like the Kremlin wall. So far we haven’t been able to penetrate her security.”

“The Chinese whore,” Antonov snarled. “Who does she think she’s dealing with, empty-headed schoolboys?”

“I believe her ancestry is Korean,” said Polevoi.

“No difference.” Antonov stopped and sat down heavily on a fallen log. “Where is the experiment taking place?”

Polevoi shook his head. “We don’t know that either.”

“Have you no communication with Comrade Lugovoy?”

“He and his staff departed lower Manhattan Island on the Staten Island ferry late Friday night. They never stepped ashore at the landing. We lost all contact.”

“I want to know where they are,” Antonov said evenly. “I want to know the exact location of the experiment.”

“I have our best agents working on it.”

“We can’t allow her to keep us wandering in the dark, especially when there is one billion American dollars’ worth of our gold reserves at stake.”

Polevoi gave the Communist Party Chairman a crafty look. “Do you intend to pay her fee?”

“Does the Volga melt in January?” Antonov replied with a broad grin.

“She won’t be an easy prey to outfox.”

The sound of feet tramping through the underbrush could be heard. Antonov’s eyes flickered to the ground-keepers who were approaching with the downed pheasants and then back to Polevoi.

“Just find Lugovoy,” he said softly, “and the rest will take care of itself.”

Four miles away in a sound truck two men sat in front of a sophisticated microwave receiving set. Beside them two reel-to-reel tape decks were recording Antonov and Polevoi’s conversation in the woods.

The men were electronic surveillance specialists with the SDECE, France’s intelligence service. Both could interpret six languages, including Russian. In unison they lifted their earphones and exchanged curious looks.

“What in hell do you suppose that was all about?” said one.

The second man gave a Gallic shrug. “Who can say? Probably some kind of Russian double-talk.”

“I wonder if an analyst can make anything important out of it?”

“Important or not, we’ll never know.”

The first man paused, held an earphone to his ear for a few moments and then set it down again. “They’re talking with President L’Estrange now. That’s all we’re going to get.”

“Okay, let’s close down shop and get the recordings to Paris. I’ve got a date at six o’clock.”

22

The sun was two hours above the eastern edge of the city when Sandecker drove through a back gate of Washington’s National Airport. He stopped the car beside a seemingly deserted hangar standing in a weed-covered part of the field far beyond the airlines’ maintenance area. He walked to a side door whose weathered wood had long since shed its paint and pressed a small button opposite a large rusting padlock. After a few seconds the door silently swung open.

The cavernous interior was painted a glossy white, which brightly reflected the sun’s rays through huge skylights in the curved roof, and had the look of a transportation museum. The polished concrete floor held four long orderly rows of antique and classic automobiles. Most gleamed as elegantly as the day their coachmakers added the finishing touch. A few were in various stages of restoration. Sandecker lingered by a majestic 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost with coach-work by Park-Ward and a massive red 1925 Isotta-Fraschini with a torpedo body by Sala.

The two centerpieces were an old Ford trimotor aircraft known to aviation enthusiasts as the “tin goose” and an early-twentieth-century railroad Pullman car with the words MANHATTAN LIMITED painted in gilded letters on its steel side.

Sandecker made his way up a circular iron stairway to a glass-enclosed apartment that spanned the upper level across one end of the hangar. The living room was decorated in marine antiques. One wall was lined with shelves supporting delicately crafted ship models in glass cases.

He found Pitt standing in front of a stove studying a strange-looking mixture in a frying pan. Pitt wore a pair of khaki hiking shorts, tattered tennis shoes and a T-shirt with the words RAISE THE LUSITANIA across the front.

“You’re just in time to eat, Admiral.”

“What have you got there?” asked Sandecker, eyeing the mixture with suspicion.

“Nothing fancy. A spicy Mexican omelet.”

“I’ll settle for a cup of coffee and half a grapefruit.”

Pitt served as they sat down at a kitchen table and poured the coffee. Sandecker frowned and waved a newspaper in the air. “You made page two.”

“I hope I do as well in other papers.”

“What do you expect to prove?” Sandecker demanded. “Holding a press conference and claiming you found the San Marino,which you didn’t, and the Pilottown,which is supposed to be top secret. Have you lost your gray matter?”

Pitt paused between bites of the omelet. “I made no mention of the nerve agent.”

“Fortunately the Army quietly buried it yesterday.”

“No harm done. Now that the Pilottownis empty, she’s just another rusting shipwreck.”

“The President won’t see it that way. If he wasn’t in New Mexico, we’d both be picking our asses out of a White House carpet by now.”

Sandecker was interrupted by a buzzing noise. Pitt rose from the table and pushed a switch on a small panel.

“Somebody at the door?” inquired Sandecker.

Pitt nodded.

“This is a Florida grapefruit.” Sandecker grumbled, spitting out a seed.

“So?”

“I prefer Texas.”

“I’ll make a note,” said Pitt with a grin.

“Getting back to your cockamamie story,” Sandecker said, squeezing out the last drops of juice in a spoon, “I’d like to know your reasoning.”

Pitt told him.

“Why not let the Justice Department handle it?” Sandecker asked. “That’s what they’re paid for.”

Pitt’s eyes hardened and he pointed his fork menacingly. “Because the Justice people will never be called in to investigate. The government isn’t about to admit over three hundred deaths were caused by a stolen nerve agent that isn’t supposed to exist. Lawsuits and damaging publicity would go on for years. They want to whitewash the whole mess into oblivion. The Augustine Volcano eruption was timely. Later today the President’s press secretary will hand out a bogus cover-up blaming sulphuric gas clouds for the deaths.”

Sandecker looked at him sternly for a moment. Then he asked, “Who told you that?”

“I did,” came a feminine voice from the doorway.

Loren’s face was wrapped in a disarming smile. She had been out jogging and was dressed in brief red satin shorts with a matching tank top and headband. The Virginia humidity had brought out the sweat and she was still a little breathless. She dried her face with a small towel that was tucked in her waistband.

Pitt made the introductions. “Admiral James Sandecker, Congresswoman Loren Smith.”

“We’ve sat across from each other during Maritime Committee meetings,” said Loren, extending her hand.

Sandecker didn’t need clairvoyance to read Pitt and Loren’s relationship. “Now I see why you’ve always looked kindly on my NUMA budget proposals.”

If Loren felt any embarrassment at his insinuation, she didn’t show it. “Dirk is a very persuasive lobbyist,” she said sweetly.

“Like some coffee?” asked Pitt.

“No, thanks. I’m too thirsty for coffee.” She went over to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of buttermilk.

“You know the subject of Press Secretary Thompson’s news release?” Sandecker prompted her.

Loren nodded. “My press aide and his wife are chummy with the Sonny Thompsons. They all had dinner together last night. Thompson mentioned that the White House was laying the Alaskan tragedy to rest, but that was all. He didn’t slip the details.”

Sandecker turned to Pitt. “If you persist in this vendetta, you’ll be stepping on a lot of toes.”

“I won’t give it up,” Pitt said gravely.

Sandecker looked at Loren. “And you, Congress-woman Smith?”

“Loren.”

“Loren,” he obliged. “May I ask what your interest is in this?”

She hesitated for a fraction of a second and then said, “Let’s just say congressional curiosity about a possible government scandal.”

“You haven’t told her the true purpose behind your Alaskan fishing expedition?” Sandecker asked Pitt.

“No.”

“I think you should tell her.”

“Do I have your official permission?”

The admiral nodded. “A friend in Congress will come in handy before your hunt is over.”

“And you, Admiral, where do you stand?” Pitt asked him.

Sandecker stared hard across the table at Pitt, examining every feature of the craggy face as though he were seeing it for the first time, wondering what manner of man would step far beyond normal bounds for no personal gain. He read only a fierce determination. It was an expression he had seen many times in the years he’d known Pitt.

“I’ll back you until the President orders your ass shot,” he said at last. “Then you’re on your own.”

Pitt held back an audible sigh of relief. It was going to be all right. Better than all right.

Min Koryo looked down at the newspaper on her desk. “What do you make of this?”

Lee Tong leaned over her shoulder and read the opening sentences of the article aloud. “ ‘It was announced yesterday by Dirk Pitt, Special Projects Director for NUMA, that two ships missing for over twenty years have been found. The San Marinoand the Pilottown,both Liberty-class vessels built during World War Two, were discovered on the seafloor in the North Pacific off Alaska.’ “

“A bluff!” Min Koryo snapped. “Someone in Washington, probably from the Justice Department, had nothing better to do, so they sent up a trial balloon. They’re on a fishing expedition, nothing more.”

“I think you’re only half right, aunumi,” Lee Tong said thoughtfully. “I suspect that while NUMA was searching for the source behind the deaths in Alaskan waters, they stumbled on the ship containing the nerve agent.”

“And this press release is a scheme to ferret out the true owners of that ship,” Min Koryo added.

Lee Tong nodded. “The government is gambling we will make an inquiry that can be traced.”

Min Koryo sighed. “A pity the ship wasn’t sunk as planned.”

Lee Tong came around and sank into a chair in front of the desk. “Bad luck,” he said, thinking back. “After the explosives failed to detonate, the storm hit, and I was unable to reboard the ship.”

“You can’t be faulted for nature’s whims,” Min Koryo said impassively. “The true blame lies with the Russians. If they hadn’t backed out of their bargain to buy Nerve Agent S, there would have been no need to scuttle the ship.”

“They were afraid the agent was too unstable to transport across Siberia to their chemical warfare arsenal in the Urals.”

“What’s puzzling is how did NUMA tie the two ships together?”

“I can’t say, aunumi.We were careful to strip every piece of identification.”

“No matter,” Min Koryo said. “The fact remains, the article in the newspaper is a ploy. We must remain silent and do nothing to jeopardize our anonymity.”

“What about the man who made the announcement?” Lee Tong asked. “This Dirk Pitt?”

A long, cold, brooding look came over Min Koryo’s narrow face. “Investigate his motives and observe his movements. See where he fits in the picture. If he appears to be a danger to us, arrange his funeral.”

The gray of evening softened the harsh outlines of Los Angeles, and the lights came on, pimpling the sides of the buildings. The noise of the street traffic rose and seeped through the old-fashioned sash window. The tracks were warped and jammed under a dozen coats of paint. It hadn’t been opened in thirty years. Outside, an air conditioner rattled in its brackets.

The man sat in an aging wooden swivel chair and stared unseeing through the grime filming the glass. He stared through eyes that had seen the worst the city had to give. They were hard, stark eyes, still clear and undimmed after sixty years. He sat in shirtsleeves, the well-worn leather of a holster slung over his left shoulder. The butt of a.45 automatic protruded from it. He was large-boned and stocky. The muscles had softened over the years, but he could still lift a two-hundred-pound man off the sidewalk and imbed him in a brick wall.

The chair creaked as he swung around and leaned over a desk that was battle-scarred with uncountable cigarette burns. He picked up a folded newspaper and read the article on the ship discoveries for perhaps the tenth time. Pulling open a drawer, he searched out a dog-eared folder and stared at the cover for a long while. Long ago he had memorized every word on the papers inside. Along with the newspaper he slipped it inside a worn leather briefcase.

He rose and stepped over to a washbowl hung in one corner of the room and rinsed his face with cold water. Then he donned a coat and a battered fedora, turned off the light and left the office.

As he stood in the hallway waiting for the elevator, he was surrounded by the smells of the aging building. The mold and rot seemed stronger with each passing day. Thirty-five years at the same stand was a long time, he mused, too long.

His thoughts were interrupted by the clatter of the elevator door. An operator who looked to be in his seventies gave him a yellow-toothed grin. “Callin’ it quits for the night?” he asked.

“No, I’m taking the red-eye flight to Washington.”

“New case?”

“An old one.”

There were no more questions and they rode the rest of the way in silence. As he stepped into the lobby he nodded at the operator. “See you in a couple of days, Joe.”

Then he passed through the main door and melted into the night.

23

To most, his name was Hiram Yaeger. To a Select few he was known as Pinocchio because he could stick his nose into a vast number of computer networks and sift over their software. His playground was the tenth-floor communications and information network of NUMA.

Sandecker hired him to collect and store every scrap of data ever written on the oceans, scientific or historical, fact or theory. Yaeger tackled the job with a fierce dedication, and within five years had accumulated a huge computer library of knowledge about the sea.

Yaeger worked erratic hours, sometimes coming in with the morning sun and working straight through until the following dawn. He seldom showed up for departmental meetings, but Sandecker left him alone because there was none better, and because Yaeger had an uncanny ability to pry out secret access codes to a great number of worldwide computer networks.

Always dressed in Levi’s jacket and pants, he wore his long blond hair in a bun. A scraggly beard combined with his probing eyes gave him the appearance of a desert prospector peering over the next hill for Eldorado.

He sat at a computer terminal stuck away in a far corner of NUMA’s electronic maze. Pitt stood off to one side watching with interest the green block letters on a display screen.

“That’s all we’re going to comb from the Maritime Administration’s mass storage system.”

“Nothing new there,” Pitt agreed.

“What now?”

“Can you tap the Coast Guard headquarters documents?”

Yaeger gave a wolfish grin. “Can Aunt Jemima make pancakes?”

He consulted a thick black notebook for a minute, found the insertion he was looking for and punched the number into a pushbutton telephone connected to a modem link. The Coast Guard computer system answered and accepted Yaeger’s access code, and the green block letters swept across the display: “PLEASE STATE YOUR REQUEST.”

Yaeger gave Pitt a questioning look.

“Ask for an abstract of title on the Pilottown,”Pitt ordered.

Yaeger nodded and sent the request into the terminal. The answer flashed back and Pitt studied it closely, noting all the transactions of the vessel from the time she was built, who owned it as long as it was a documented vessel flying the United States flag, and the mortgages against it. The probe was redundant. The Pilottownhad been removed from documentation when it was sold to an alien, in this case the Kassandra Phosphate Company of Athens, Greece.

“Anything promising?” Yaeger inquired.

“Another dry hole,” Pitt grunted.

“How about Lloyd’s of London? They’ll have it in their register.”

“Okay, give it a shot.”

Yaeger logged out of the Coast Guard system, checked his book again and routed the terminal to the computer bank of the great maritime insurance company. The data printed out at 400 characters a second. This time the history of the Pilottownwas revealed in greater detail. And yet little of it appeared useful. Then an item at the bottom of the display screen caught Pitt’s attention.

“I think we might have something.”

“Looks pretty much like the same stuff to me,” said Yaeger.

“The line after Sosan Trading Company.”

“Where they’re listed as operators? So what? That showed up before.”

“As owners, not operators. There’s a difference.”

“What does it prove?”

Pitt straightened, and his eyes took on a reflective look. “The reason owners register their vessel with what is called a ‘country of convenience’ is to save costly licenses, taxes and restrictive operating regulations. Another reason is they become lost to any kind of investigation. So they set up a dummy front and carry the company headquarters address as a post office box, in this case, Inchon, Korea. Now, if they contract with an operator to arrange cargoes and crews for the ship, the transfer of money from one to the other must take place. Banking facilities must be used. And banks keep records.”

“All right, but say I’m a parent outfit. Why let my shady shipping line be run by some sleazy second party if we leave traceable banking links? I fail to see the advantage.”

“An insurance scam,” Pitt answered. “The operator does the duty work while the owners collect. For example, take the case of a Greek tanker several years ago. A tramp called the Trikeri.It departed Surabaja, Indonesia, with its oil tanks filled to the brim. After reaching Capetown, South Africa, it slipped onto an offshore pipeline and removed all but a few thousand gallons. A week later it mysteriously sank off West Africa. An insurance claim was filed on the ship and a full cargo of oil. Investigators were dead certain the sinking was intentional, but they couldn’t prove it. The Trikeri’s operator took the heat and quietly went out of business. The registered owners collected the insurance payoff and then siphoned it off through a corporate maze to the power at the top.”

“This happen often?”

“More than anyone knows,” Pitt replied.

“You want to dig into the Sosan Trading Company’s bank account?”

Pitt knew better than to ask Yaeger if he could do it. He simply said, “Yes.”

Yaeger logged out of the Lloyd’s computer network and walked over to a file cabinet. He returned with a large bookkeeping ledger.

“Bank security codes,” he said without elaboration.

Yaeger set to work and homed in on Sosan Trading’s bank in two minutes. “Got it!” he exclaimed. “An obscure Inchon branch of a big bank headquartered in Seoul. Account was closed six years ago.”

“Are the statements still on file?”

Without answering, Yaeger stabbed the terminal’s keys and then sat back, arms folded, and eyed the printouts. The data blinked on with the account number and a request for the monthly statements desired. He looked up at Pitt expectantly.

“March through September 1976,” Pitt directed.

The bank’s computer system in Korea obliged.

“Most curious,” Yaeger said, digesting the data. “Only twelve transactions over a span of seven years. Sosan Trading must have cleared their overhead and payroll with cash.”

“Where did the deposits originate?” Pitt asked.

“Appears to be a bank in Bern, Switzerland.”

“One step closer.”

“Yes, but here it gets tricky,” said Yaeger. “Swiss bank security codes are more complex. And if this shipping outfit is as cagey as they appear, they probably juggle bank accounts like a vaudeville act.”

“I’ll get the coffee while you start digging.”

Yaeger looked pensively at Pitt for a moment. “You never give up, do you?”

“No.”

Yaeger was surprised at the sudden coldness in Pitt’s tone. He shrugged. “Okay, pal, but this isn’t going to be a walkover. It may take all night and turn up zilch. I’ll have to keep sending different number combinations until I strike the right codes.”

“You got something better to do?”

“No, but while you’re getting the coffee, I’d appreciate it if you scare up some donuts.”

The bank in Bern, Switzerland, proved discouraging. Any trail to Sosan Trading’s parent company ended there. They spot-checked six other Swiss banks, hoping they might get lucky, like a treasure hunter who finds the shipwreck chart he’s searching for hidden away in the wrong drawer of an archive. But they turned up nothing of value. Groping through the account records of every banking house in Europe presented a staggering problem. There were over six thousand of them.

“Looks pretty dismal,” said Yaeger after five hours of staring at the display screen.

“I agree,” said Pitt.

“Shall I keep punching away?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Yaeger raised his arms and stretched. “This is how I get my kicks. You look like you’ve had it, though. Why don’t you shove off and get some sleep? If I stumble on anything, I’ll give you a call.”

Pitt gratefully left Yaeger at NUMA headquarters and drove across the river to the airport. He stopped the Talbot-Lago in front of his hangar door, slipped a small transmitter from his coat pocket and pressed a preset code. In sequence the security alarm systems closed down and the massive door lifted to a height of seven feet. He parked the car inside and reversed the process. Then wearily he climbed the stairway, entered the living room and turned on the lights.

A man was sitting in Pitt’s favorite reading chair, his hands folded on a briefcase that rested on his lap. There was a patient look about him, almost deadly, with only the tiniest hint of an indifferent smile. He wore an old-fashioned fedora hat and his custom-tailored coat, specially cut to conceal a lethal bulge, was unbuttoned just enough to reveal the butt of a.45 automatic.

For a moment they stared at each other, neither speaking, like fighters sizing up their opponents.

At last Pitt broke the silence. “I guess the appropriate thing to say is, Who the hell are you?”

The thin smile broadened into a set grin. “I’m a private investigator, Mr. Pitt. My name is Casio, Sal Casio.”