Текст книги "Deep Six"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

15

Congresswoman Loren Smith was waiting on the concourse when Pitt’s flight from Charleston arrived at Washington’s National Airport. She waved to get his attention, and he smiled. The gesture was unnecessary. She was an easy woman to spot.

Loren stood tall, slightly over five foot eight. Her cinnamon hair was long but layered around the face, which accented her prominent cheekbones and deep violet eyes. She was dressed in a pink cotton-knit tunic-style dress with scoop neck and long sleeves that were rolled up. For an elegant touch, she wore a Chinese-patterned sash around her waist.

She possessed an air of breezy sophistication, yet underneath one could sense a tomboyish daring. A representative elected from the state of Colorado, Loren was serving her second term. She loved her job; it was her life. Feminine and softspoken, she could be an unleashed tiger on the floor of Congress when she tackled an issue. Her colleagues respected her for her shrewdness as well as her beauty. She was a private woman, shunning the parties and dinners unless they were politically necessary. Her only outside activity was an “on again, off again” affair with Pitt.

She approached him and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Welcome home, voyager.”

He put his arm around her and they set off toward the baggage claim. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“I borrowed one of your cars. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Depends,” he said. “Which one?”

“My favorite, the blue Talbot-Lago.”

“The coupe with the Saoutchik coachwork? You have expensive taste. That’s a $200,000 car.”

“Oh, dear, I hope it doesn’t get dented in the parking lot.”

Pitt gave her a solemn look. “If it does, the sovereign state of Colorado will have a vacant seat in Congress.”

She clutched his arm and laughed. “You think more of your cars than you do your women.”

“Cars never nag and complain.”

“I can think of a few other things they never do,” she said with a girlish smile.

They threaded their way through the crowded terminal and waited at the baggage claim. Finally the conveyor belt hummed into motion and Pitt retrieved his two suitcases. They passed outside into a gray, sticky morning and found the blue 1948 Talbot-Lago sitting peacefully under the watchful eye of an airport security guard. Pitt relaxed in the passenger’s seat as Loren slipped behind the wheel. The rakish car was a right-hand drive, and it always struck Pitt odd to sit and stare out the left side of the windshield at the approaching traffic with nothing to do.

“Did you call Perlmutter?” he asked.

“About an hour before you landed,” she answered. “He was quite agreeable, for someone who was jolted out of a sound sleep. He said he’d go through his library for data on the ships you asked about.”

“If anyone knows ships, it’s St. Julien Perlmutter.”

“He sounds like a character over the phone.”

“An understatement. Wait till you meet him.”

Pitt watched the passing scenery for a few moments without speaking. He stared at the Potomac River as Loren drove north along the George Washington Memorial Parkway and cut over the Francis Scott Key Bridge to Georgetown.

Pitt was not fond of Georgetown; “Phonyville,” he called it. The drab brick town houses looked like they had all been popped from the same biscuit mold. Loren steered the Talbot onto N Street. Parked cars jammed the curbs, trash lay in the gutters, little of the sidewalk shrubbery was trimmed, and yet it was perhaps four blocks of the most overpriced real estate in the country. Tiny houses, Pitt mused, filled with gigantic egos generously coated with megadoses of forged veneer.

Loren squeezed into a vacant parking space and turned off the ignition. They locked the car and walked between two vine-encrusted homes to a carriage house in the rear. Before Pitt could lift a bronze knocker shaped like a ship’s anchor, the door was thrown open by a great monster of a man who mashed the scales at nearly four hundred pounds. His sky-blue eyes twinkled and his crimson face was mostly hidden under a thick forest of gray hair and beard. Except for his small tulip nose, he looked like Santa Claus gone to seed.

“Dirk,” he fairly boomed. “Where’ve you been hiding?”

St. Julien Perlmutter was dressed in purple silk pajamas under a red and gold paisley robe. He encompassed Pitt with his chunky arms and lifted him off the doorstep in a bear hug, without a hint of strain. Loren’s eyes widened in astonishment. She’d never met Perlmutter in person and wasn’t prepared.

“You kiss me, Julien,” said Pitt sternly, “and I’ll kick you in the crotch.”

Perlmutter gave a belly laugh and released Pitt’s 180 pounds. “Come in, come in. I’ve made breakfast. You must be starved after your travels.”

Pitt introduced Loren. Perlmutter kissed her hand with a Continental flourish and then led them into a huge combination living room, bedroom and study. Shelves supporting the weight of thousands of books sagged from floor to ceiling on every wall. There were books on tables, books on chairs. They were even stacked on a king-size water bed that rippled in an alcove.

Perlmutter possessed what was acknowledged by experts as the finest collection of historical ship literature ever assembled. At least twenty marine museums were constantly angling to have it donated to their libraries after a lifetime of excess calories sent him to a mortuary.

He motioned Pitt and Loren to sit at a hatch-cover table laid with an elegant silver and china service bearing the emblem of a French transatlantic steamship line.

“It’s all so lovely,” said Loren admiringly.

“From the famous French liner Normandie,”Perlmutter explained. “Found it all in a warehouse where it had been packed away since before the ship burned and rolled over in New York harbor.”

He served them a German breakfast, beginning with schnapps, thin-sliced Westphalian ham garnished with pickles and accompanied by pumpernickel bread. For a side dish he’d whipped up potato dumplings with a prune-butter filling.

“Tastes marvelous,” said Loren. “I love eating something besides eggs and bacon for a change.”

“I’m addicted to German cooking.” Perlmutter laughed, patting his ample stomach. “Lots more substance than that candy-ass French fare, which is nothing but an exotic way to prepare garbage.”

“Did you find any information on the San Marinoand the Pilottown?”asked Pitt, turning the conversation to the subject on his mind.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.” Perlmutter hefted his bulk from the table and soon returned with a large dusty volume on Liberty ships. He donned a pair of reading glasses and turned to a marked page.

“Here we are. The San Marino,launched by the Georgia Shipbuilding Corporation, July of 1943. Hull number 2356, classed as a cargo carrier. Sailed Atlantic convoys until the end of the war. Damaged by submarine torpedo from the U-573. Reached Liverpool under her own power and was repaired. Sold after the war to the Bristol Steamship Company of Bristol, England. Sold 1956 to the Manx Steamship Company of New York, Panamanian registry. Vanished with all hands, north Pacific, 1966.

“So that was the end of her.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Perlmutter. “There’s a postscript. I found a report in another reference source. About three years after the ship was posted missing, a Mr. Rodney Dewhurst, who was a marine insurance underwriter for the Lloyd’s office in Singapore, noticed a ship moored in the harbor that struck him as vaguely familiar. There was an unusual design to the cargo booms, one he’d seen on only one other Liberty-class ship. He managed to talk his way on board and after a brief search smelled a rat. Unfortunately, it was a holiday and it took him several hours to round up the harbor authorities and convince them to arrest the ship in port and hold it for an investigation. By the time they reached the dock, the vessel was long gone, steaming somewhere out to sea. A check of custom records showed her to be the Belle Chasse,Korean registry, owned by the Sosan Trading Company of Inchon, Korea. Her next destination was Seattle. Dewhurst cabled an alert to the Seattle Harbor Police, but the Belle Chassenever arrived.”

“Why was Dewhurst suspicious of her?” Pitt asked.

“He had inspected the San Marinobefore underwriting the insurance on her and was dead certain she and the Belle Chassewere one and the same.”

“Surely the Belle Chasseturned up in another port?” Loren asked.

Perlmutter shook his head. “She faded from the records until two years later, when she was reported scrapped in Pusan, Korea.” He paused and looked across the table. “Does any of this help you?”

Pitt took another swallow of the schnapps. “That’s the problem. I don’t know.” He went on to briefly relate the discovery of the Pilottown,but omitted any mention of the nerve gas cargo. He described finding the serial number on the ship’s boiler and running a check on it in Charleston.

“So the old Pilottown’s been tracked down at last.” Perlmutter sighed wistfully. “She wanders the sea no more.”

“But her discovery opened a new can of worms,” Pitt said. “Why was she carrying a boiler that was recorded by the manufacturer as installed in the San Marino?It doesn’t add up. Both ships were probably constructed on adjoining slipways and launched about the same time. The on-site inspector must have been confused. He simply wrote up the boiler as placed in the wrong hull.”

“I hate to spoil your black mood,” said Perlmutter, “but you may be wrong.”

“Isn’t there a connection between the two ships?”

Perlmutter gave Pitt a scholarly gaze over the tops of his glasses. “Yes, but not what you think.” He turned to the book again and began reading aloud. “The Liberty ship Bart Pulver,later the Rosthenaand Pilottown,launched by Astoria Iron and Steel Company, Portland, Oregon, in November of 1942—”

“She was built on the West Coast?” Pitt interrupted in surprise.

“About twenty-five hundred miles from Savannah, as the crow flies,” Perlmutter replied indirectly, “and nine months earlier than the San Marino.”He turned to Loren. “Would you like some coffee, dear lady?”

Loren stood up. “You two keep talking. I’ll get it.”

“It’s espresso.”

“I know how to operate the machine.”

Perlmutter looked at Pitt and gave a jolly wink. “She’s a winner.”

Pitt nodded and continued. “It’s not logical a Charleston boiler-maker would ship across the country to Oregon with a Savannah shipyard only ninety miles away.”

“Not logical at all,” Perlmutter agreed.

“What else do you have on the Pilottown?”

Perlmutter read on. “Hull number 793, also classed as a cargo carrier. Sold after the war to the Kassandra Phosphate Company Limited of Athens. Greek registry. Ran aground with a cargo of phosphates off Jamaica, June of 1954. Refloated four months later. Sold 1962 to the Sosan Trading Company—”

“Inchon, Korea,” Pitt finished. “Our first connection.”

Loren returned with a tray of small cups and passed the espresso coffee around the table.

“This is indeed a treat,” said Perlmutter gallantly. “I’ve never been waited on by a member of Congress before.”

“I hope I didn’t make it too strong,” Loren said, testing the brew and making a face.

“A little mud on the bottom sharpens a woolly mind,” Perlmutter reassured her philosophically.

“Getting back to the Pilottown,”Pitt said. “What happened to her after 1962?”

“No other entry is shown until 1979, when she’s listed as sunk during a storm in the northern Pacific with all hands. After that she became something of a cause célèbre by reappearing on a number of occasions along the Alaskan coast.”

“Then she went missing in the same area of the sea as the San Marino,”said Pitt thoughtfully. “Another possible tie-in.”

“You’re grabbing at bubbles,” said Loren. “I can’t see where any of this is taking you.”

“I’m with her.” Perlmutter nodded. “There’s no concrete pattern.”

“I think there is,” Pitt said confidently. “What began as a cheap insurance fraud is unraveling into a cover-up of far greater proportions.”

“Why your interest in this?” Perlmutter asked, staring Pitt in the eyes.

Pitt’s gaze was distant. “I can’t tell you.”

“A classified government investigation maybe?”

“I’m on my own in this one, but it’s related to a ‘most secret’ project.”

Perlmutter gave in good-naturedly. “Okay, old friend, no more prying questions.” He helped himself to another dumpling. “If you suspect the ship buried under the volcano is the San Marinoand not the Pilot-town,where do you go from here?”

“Inchon, Korea. The Sosan Trading Company might hold the key.”

“Don’t waste your time. The trading company is most certainly a false front, a name on a registry certificate. As is the case with most shipping companies, all trace of ownership ends at an obscure post office box. If I were you, I’d give it up as a lost cause.”

“You’d never make a football coach,” Pitt said with a laugh. “Your half-time locker-room speech would discourage your team into throwing away a twenty-point lead.”

“Another glass of schnapps, if you please?” said Perlmutter in a grumbling tone, holding out his glass as Pitt poured. “Tell you what I’ll do. Two of my corresponding friends on nautical research are Koreans. I’ll have them check out Sosan Trading for you.”

“And the Pusan shipyards for any records covering the scrapping of the Belle Chasse.”

“All right, I’ll throw that in too.”

“I’m grateful for your help.”

“No guarantees.”

“I don’t expect any.”

“What’s your next move?”

“Send out press releases.”

Loren looked up, puzzled. “Send what?”

“Press releases,” Pitt answered casually, “to announce the discovery of both the San Marinoand the Pilottownand describe NUMA’s plans for inspecting the wrecks.”

“When did you dream up that foolish stunt?” Loren asked.

“About ten seconds ago.”

Perlmutter gave Pitt the stare of a psychiatrist about to commit a hopeless mental case. “I fail to see the purpose.”

“No one in the world is immune from curiosity,” Pitt exclaimed with a devious glint in his green eyes. “Somebody from the parent company that owned those ships will step from behind the shroud of corporate anonymity to check the story. And when they do, I’ll have their ass.”

16

When oates entered the White House Situation Room, the men seated around the conference table came to their feet. It was a sign of respect for the man who now shouldered the vast problems of the nation’s uncertain future. The responsibility for the far-reaching decisions of the next few days, and perhaps longer, would be his alone. There were some in the room who had mistrusted his cold aloofness, his cultivated holy image. They now cast off personal dislike and rallied to his side.

He took the chair at the head of the table. He motioned to the others to sit and turned to Sam Emmett, the gruff-spoken chief of the FBI, and Martin Brogan, the urbane, intellectual director of the CIA.

“Have you gentlemen been fully briefed?”

Emmett nodded toward Fawcett, seated at the table’s other end. “Dan has described the situation.”

“Either of you got anything on this?”

Brogan shook his head slowly. “Off the top of my head I can’t recall hearing any indications or rumors from our intelligence sources pointing to an operation of this magnitude. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have something that was misinterpreted.”

“I’m in pretty much the same boat as Martin,” said Emmett. “It’s beyond comprehension that a presidential abduction could slip through the Bureau’s fingers without even a vague clue.”

Oates’s next question was put to Brogan. “Do we have any intelligence that might lead us to suspect the Russians?”

“Soviet President Antonov doesn’t consider our President half the threat he did Reagan. He’d be risking a massive confrontation if it ever leaked to the American public his government was involved. You could compare it to striking a hornet’s nest with a stick. I can’t see what, if any, gains the Russians would net.”

“What’s your gut reaction, Sam?” Oates asked Emmett. “Could this be terrorist-inspired?”

“Too elaborate. This operation took an immense amount of planning and money. The ingenuity is incredible. It goes far beyond the capabilities of any terrorist organization.”

“Any theories?” asked Oates, addressing the table.

“I can think of at least four Arab leaders who might have a motive for blackmailing the U.S.,” said General Metcalf. “And Qaddafi of Libya heads the list.”

“They certainly have the financial resources,” said Defense Secretary Simmons.

“But hardly the sophistication,” Brogan added.

Alan Mercier, the National Security Adviser, motioned with his hand to speak. “In my estimation the conspiracy is of domestic origin rather than foreign.”

“What’s your reasoning?” Oates asked.

“Our land and space listening systems monitor every telephone and radio transmission around the world, and it’s no secret to everyone present that our new tenth-generation computers can break any code the Russians or our Allies devise. It stands to reason that an intricate operation of this size would require a flow of international message traffic leading up to the act and a report of success afterwards.” Mercier paused to make his point. “Our analysts have not intercepted a foreign communication that suggests the slightest connection with the disappearance.”

Simmons sucked noisily on his pipe. “I think Alan makes a good case.”

“Okay,” Oates said, “foreign blackmail rates a low score. So what are we looking at from the domestic angle?”

Dan Fawcett, who had previously been silent, spoke up. “It may sound farfetched, but we can’t eliminate a corporate plot to overthrow the government.”

Oates leaned back and straightened his shoulders. “Maybe not as farfetched as we think. The President went after the financial institutions and the multinational conglomerates with a vengeance. His tax programs took a hell of a bite out of their profits. They’re pumping money into the opposition party’s campaign coffers faster than their banks can print the checks.”

“I warned him about grandstanding on the issue of helping the poor by taxing the rich,” Fawcett said. “But he refused to listen. He alienated the nation’s businessmen, as well as the working middle class. Politicians just can’t seem to get it into their heads that a vast number of American families with a working wife are in a fifty-percent tax bracket.”

“The President has powerful enemies,” Mercier conceded. “However, it’s inconceivable to me that any corporate empire could steal away the President and congressional leaders without its leaking to a law-enforcement agency.”

“I agree,” Emmett said. “Too many people had to be in on it. Somebody would have gotten cold feet and spilled the scheme.”

“I think we’d better call a halt to speculation,” said Oates. “Let’s get back on the track. The first step is to launch a massive investigation while keeping up a business-as-usual front. Use whatever cover story you feel is plausible. If at all possible, don’t even let your key people in on this.”

“What about a central command post during the investigation?” Emmett asked.

“We’ll continue to gather here every eight hours to assess incoming evidence and coordinate efforts between your respective investigative agencies.”

Simmons pushed forward in his chair. “I have a problem. I’m scheduled to fly to Cairo this afternoon to confer with Egypt’s Minister of Defense.”

“By all means go,” Oates replied. “Keep up normal appearances. General Metcalf can cover for you at the Pentagon.”

Emmett shifted in his chair. “I’m supposed to speak before a law class at Princeton tomorrow morning.”

Oates pondered a moment. “Claim you have the flu and can’t make it.” He turned to Lucas. “Oscar, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, you’re the most expendable. Substitute for Sam. Certainly no one would suspect a presidential kidnapping if the new Director of the Secret Service can take time out to give a speech.”

Lucas nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“Good.” Oates looked around the table. “Everybody plan on being back here at two o’clock. Maybe we’ll know something by then.”

“I’ve already sent a crack lab team over to the yacht,” Emmett volunteered. “With luck they’ll turn up some solid leads.”

“Let’s pray they do.” Oates’s shoulders sagged and he appeared to stare through the tabletop. “My God,” he muttered quietly. “Is this any way to run a government?”