Текст книги "Treasure"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

"Your friends will have to wait," Pitt said firmly. "any survivors on the downed aircraft must come first. How far to your camp?"

"A kilometer to the south," Hoskins answered compliantly.

"The snowmobile is still operable. You and your partner rehitch the sled and carry them back to your camp. Go easy in case they have any internal injuries. You have a radio?"

"Yes. "

"Keep it set on frequency thirty-two and stand by," said Pitt. "If the plane was a commercial jetliner loaded with passengers, we'll have a real mess on our hands."

"We'll stand by," Graham assured him.

Pitt leaned over Lily and squeezed her hand. "Don't forget our date,"

he said.

Then he yanked the parka hood over his head, turned and jogged back to the helicopter.

Rubin felt a great weight smothering him from all sides as if some relentless force was driving him backward. The seat belt and harness pressed cruelly into his gut and shoulders. He opened his eyes and saw only vague and shadowy images. As he waited for his vision to clear he tried to move his hands and arms, but they seemed locked in place.

Then his eyes gradually focused and he saw why.

An avalanche of snow and ice had forged through the shattered windshield, entrapping his body up to the chest. He made a desperate attempt to free himself. After a few minutes of struggling, he gave up.

The unyielding pressure held him like a straitjacket. There was no way he could escape the cockpit without help.

The shock slowly began to fade and he gritted his teeth from the pain that erupted from his broken legs. Rubin thought it strange that his feet felt as though they were immersed in water. He rationalized that it was his own blood.

Rubin was wrong. The plane had settled through the ice in water nearly three meters deep and it had flooded the cabin floor up to the seats.

Only then did he remember Ybarra. He turned his head to his right and squinted through the darkness. The starboard side of the aircraft's bow had been crushed inward almost to the engineer's panel. All he could see of the Mexican delegate was a rigid, upraised arm protruding from the snow and telescoped wreckage.

Rubin turned away, sick in the sudden realization that the little man who had sat at his side throughout the terrible ordeal was dead, every bone crushed. Rubin also realized he had only a short time to live before he froze to death.

He began to cry.

"She should be coming up!" Giordino shouted over the engine and rotor noise.

Pitt nodded and stared down at the gouge that cut across the merciless ice, its sides littered with bits and pieces of jagged debris. He saw it now. A tangible object with mamnade straight lines imperceptibly appeared in the gloom ahead. Then they were on top of it.

There was a sad and ominous appearance about the crumPlead aircraft. One wing had completely ripped off and the other was twisted back against the fuselage. The tail section was buckled at a pathetic angle. The remains had the look of a mashed bug on a white carpet.

... The fuselage sank through the ice and two-thirds of it is immersed in water," Pitt observed.

"She didn't burn," said Giordino. "That's a piece of luck."

He held up his hand to shade his eyes from the dazzling reflection as the helicopter's lights swept the airliner's length. "Talk about highly polished skin. Her maintenance people took good care of her. I'd guess she was a Boeing 720-B. any sign of life?"

"None," replied Pitt. "it doesn't look good."

"How about identification markings?"

"Three stripes running down the hull, light blue and purple separated by a band of gold."

"Not the colors of any airline i'm familiar with."

"Drop down and circle her," said Pitt. "While you spot a landing site, I'll try and read her lettering."

Giordino banked and spiraled toward the wreckage. The landing lights, mounted on bow and tail of the helicopter, exposed the half-sunken aircraft in a sea of brilliance. The name above the decorative stripes was in a slanted-style instead of the usual easier to read block-type letters.

"NEBULA," Pitt read aloud. "NEBULA AIR."

"Never heard of it," said Giordino, his eyes fixed on the ice.

"A plush airline that caters to vips.

"What in hell is it doing so far from the beaten track?"

"We'll soon know if anybody's alive to tell us."

Pitt turned to the eight men sitting comfortably in the warm belly of the chopper. They were all appropriately clothed in blue Navy Arctic weather gear. One was the ship's surgeon, three were medics, and four were damage-control experts. They chatted back and forth as casually as if they were on a bus trip to Denver. Between them, tied down by straps in the center of the floor, boxes of medical supplies, bundles of blankets and a rack of stretchers sat stacked beside asbestos suits and a crate of firefighting equipment.

An auxiliary-powered heating unit was secured opposite the main door, its hoisting cables attached to an overhead winch. Next to it stood a compact snowmobile with an enclosed cabin and side tracks.

The gray-haired man seated just aft of the cockpit, with gray mustache and beard to match, looked back at Pitt and grinned. "About time for us to earn our pay?" he asked cheerfully.

Nothing, it seemed, could dim Dr. Jack Gale's merry disposition.

"We're setting down now," answered Pitt. "Nothing stirring around the plane. No indication of fire. The cockpit is buried and the fuselage looks distorted but intact."

"Nothing ever comes easy." Gale shrugged. "Still, it beats hell out of treating burn cases."

"That's the full news. The tough news is the main cabin is filled with nearly a meter of water, and we didn't bring our galoshes."

Gale's face turned serious. "God help any injured who didn't stay dry.

They wouldn't have lasted eight minutes in freezing water."

"If none of the survivors can open an emergency exit, we may have to cut our way inside."

"Sparks from cutting equipment have a nasty habit of igniting sloshing jet fuel," said Lieutenant Cork Simon, the stocky leader of the Polar Explorer's damage-control team. He bore the confident look of a man who knew his job inside out and then some. "Better we go in through the main cabin door. Doc Gale, here, will need all the space he can get to remove any stretcher cases."

"I agree," said Pitt. "But a pressurized door that's been jammed against its stops by the distortion of the crash will take time to force open. people may be freezing to death in there. Our first job is to make an opening to insert the vent pipe from the heater."

He broke off as Giordino cut a steep Turn and dropped down toward a flat area only a stone's throw from the wreck. Everyone tensed in readiness.

Outside, the beat of the rotor blades whiPPed up a small blizzard of snow and ice particles, turning the landing site into an alabaster-colored stew that wiped out all vision.

Giordino had barely touched the wheels to the ice and set the throttles on idle when Pitt shoved open the loading door, jumped into the cold and headed toward the wreckage. Behind him Doc Gale began directing the unloading of supplies while Cork Simon and his team willched the auxiliary heater and the snowmobile onto the ice.

Half-running, half-slipping, pi made a visual inspection of the interior of the fuse lage, carefully avoiding open breaks in the ice.

The air reeked with the unwelcome smell of jet fuel. He climbed up the ice MOUnd that was piled a meter thick over the cockpit windows.

Climbing the slick surface was like crawling up a greased ramp. He tried to scoop an opening into the cockpit, but quickly gave it up: it would have taken an hour or more to dig through the packed ice and then tunnel inside.

He slid down and ran around to the remaining wing. The right section was twisted and broken from its supporting mounts, the tip pointing toward the tail. it lay on the ice, crushed against the sunken fuselage only an arm's length below the row of windows. Using the wing as a platform over the open water, Pitt dropped to his hands and knees and tried to peer inside. The lights from the helicopter reflected off the Plexiglas, and he had to cup his hands around his eyes to close out the glare, At first he could not detect any movement, only darkness and a deathly stillness.

Then, quite suddenly, a grotesque face materialized on the other side of the window, scant centimeters from Pitts eyes.

He unconsciously stepped back. The sudden appearance of a woman with a cut over one eye and blood flowing over half the features, all distorted by the hairline cracks running through the window, startled Pitt momentarily.

He quickly shook off the shock and studied the unblemished side of the face. The high cheekbones, the long dark hair, and one olive-brown eye was enough to suggest a very beautiful woman, Pitt thought charitably.

He leaned close to the window and yelled, "Can you open an emergency exit hatch?"

The plucked eyebrow raised a fraction, but the eye looked blank.

"Do you hear me?"

At that instant, Simon's men fired up the auxiliary power unit, and a stand of floodlights flashed on, illuminating the aircraft in a glare as bright as daylight. They quickly connected the heater unit and Simon began dragging the flexible hose across the ice.

"Over here, on the wing," Pitt waved. "And bring something to cut through a window."

The damage-control team had been trained for emergency ship repair, and they went about their trade, competent and without wasted movement, as if rescuing trapped passengers from a downed airplane was an everyday exercise.

When Pitt turned back, the woman's face was gone.

Simon and one of his team scrambled up on the twisted wing, struggling to keep their footing while tugging the widemouthed heater hose behind.

Pitt felt a blast of hot air and was amazed that the heating unit required so little time to warm UP

"We'll need a fire ax to break through," said Pitt.

Simon feigned a haughty look. "Give the U.S. Navy credit for a touch of finesse. We've advanced far beyond crude chopping methods." He removed a compact battery-powered tool from his coat pocket. He pushed the switch and a small abrasive wheel on one end began to spin. "Goes through aluminum and Plexiglas like butter."

"Do your stuff," Pitt said dryly, moving back out of the way.

Simon was as good as his word; the little cutting device sliced through the thick exterior window in less than two minutes. The sheet inside took only seconds.

Pitt hunched down and extended his arm inside and beamed a flashlight. There was no sign of the woman. The cold water of the fjord glittered under the light's ray. The water lapped at the edge of empty, nearby seats.

Simon and Pitt inserted the end of the heater hose through the window and then hurried around to the forward section of the aircraft. The navy men had reached under the water and released the latch to the main exit door, but, as expected, it was jammed. They rapidly drilled holes and screwed in stainless-steel hooks which were attached to cables leading to the snowmobile.

The driver engaged the clutch and the snowmobile slowly inched ahead until the slack was taken up. Then he revved the engine, the metal spikes of the treads dug in, and the little snowmobile strained forward.

for a few seconds nothing seemed to happen. There was only the growl of the exhaust and the crunching noise of the treads as they chiseled their way into the ice.

After an anxious wait, a new sound broke the cold-an unearthly screeching of protesting metal, and then the lower edge of the cabin door raised out of the water. The cables were unhooked and the entire rescue crew crouched down, set their shoulders against the door and heaved upward until it creaked almost to a full open position.

The inside of the plane was dark and ominous.

Pitt leaned across the narrow stretch of open water and stared into the unknown, his stomach churning with morbid curiosity. His figure threw a shadow over the water in the aisle of the main cabin, and at first he saw nothing but the gleam from the walls of the galley.

It was strangely quiet and there was no sign of human remains.

Pitt hesitated and looked back. Doc Gale and his medical team were standing behind him, staring in grim anticipation, while Simon's men were unreeling cable from the power unit to light the plane's interior.

"Going in," Pitt said.

He jumped across the opening into the plane. He landed on the deck in water that splashed over his knees. His legs felt like they had been suddenly stabbed by a thousand needles. He waded around the bulkhead and into the aisle separating the seats of the passenger cabin. The eerie silence was unnerving; the only sound came from the sloshing of his movement.

Then he froze in shock, his worst fears unfolding like the petals of a poisonous flower.

Pitt found himself exchanging blank looks with a sea of ghostly white faces. None moved, none blinked, none spoke. They just sat strapped in their seats and stared at him with the sightless expression of the dead.

A chill colder than the freezing air spread over the back of Pitts neck.

The light from outside filtered through the windows, casting eerie shadows on the walls. He looked from seat to seat as if expecting one of the passengers to wave a greeting or say something, but they sat as still as mummies in a tomb.

He leaned over a man with slicked-back red-blond hair precisely parted down the middle of the skull, who sat in an aisle seat. There was no expression of agony on the face. The eyes were half open as if they were about to close in sleep, the lips met natumfly, the jaw slightly loose.

Pitt lifted a limp hand and placed his fingertips just below the base of the thumb and pressed against the artery running beneath the skin on the inner side of the wrist. His touch felt no pulsations-the heart had stopped.

"Anything?" asked Doc Gale, wading past him and examining another passenger.

"He's gone," replied Pin.

"So's this one."

"from what cause?"

"Can't tell yet. No apparent injuries. Dead only a short time. No indication of intense pain or struggle. Skin coloring doesn't suggest asphyxiation."

"if he last fits," said Pitt. "The oxygen masks are still in the overhead panels."

Gale quickly moved from body to body. "I'll know better after a more thorough examination."

He paused as Simon finished mounting a light unit above the doorway and safely above the water. The naval officer motioned outside, and suddenly the interior of the passenger cabin was flooded with light.

Pitt surveyed the cabin. The only noticeable damage was a slight distortion in the ceiling. All seats were in an upright position and the seat belts buckled.

"Impossible to believe they just sat here half immersed in ice water and died from hypothermia without making any movement," he said while checking an elderly brown-haired woman for life signs. There was no hint of suffering in her face. She looked as if she had simply fallen asleep. A small rosary hung loosely from her fingers.

"Obviously all were dead before the plane struck the ice," offered Gale.

"A valid answer," Pitt murmured, rapidly scanning the seat rows as if searching for someone.

"Death probably came from toxic fumes."

"Smell anything?"

"No

"Neither do I."

"What does that leave us?"

"Digested poison."

Gale stared at Pitt a long, hard moment. "You're talking mass murder."

"We appear to be headed in that direction."

"Might help if we had a witness."

"We do."

Gale stiffened and hurriedly looked over the white faces. "You spot someone still breathing? Point him out."

"Before we broke inside," Pitt explained, "a woman stared at me through a window. She was alive. I don't see her now."

Before Gale could reply, Simon sloshed down the aisle and stopped, his eyes bulging with shock and incomprehension. "What in hell?" He stiffened and stared wildly around the cabin. "They look like figures in a wax museum."

"try cadavers in a morgue," said Pitt dryly.

"They're dead? Everyone? You're absolutely sure?"

"Someone is alive," answered Pitt, "either in the cockpit or hiding out in the bathrooms to the rear."

"Then they're in need of my attention," said Gale.

Pitt nodded. "I think it best if you continue your examination in the slim chance there's a spark of life in any of these people. Simon can check the cockpit area. I'll head aft and search the bathrooms."

"What about all these stiffs?" asked Simon irreverently. "Shouldn't we alert Commander Knight and begin evacuating them?"

"Leave them be," Pitt said quietly, "and stay off the radio. We'll make our report to Commander Knight in person. Keep your men outside. Seal the door and place the interior of the aircraft off limits. Same goes for your medical team, Doc. Touch nothing unless it's absolutely necessary. Something's happened here beyond our depth. Word of the crash has already gone out. Within hours air-crash investigators and the news media will be swarming around like locusts. Best to keep what we've found under wraps until we hear from the proper authorities."

Simon weighed Pitts words for a moment. "I get the picture.

"Then let's get a move on and find a survivor,"

What was normally a twenty-second walk took Pitt nearly two minutes of struggle through the thigh-high water before he reached the bathrooms.

His feet had already turned numb and he didn't require the services of Doc Gale to tell him he'd have to dry and warm them in the next half hour or risk frostbite.

The death toll would have been much higher if the plane had carried a full load of passengers. But even with many of the seats vacant, he still counted fifty-three bodies.

He paused to examine a female flight attendant seated against the rear bulkhead. Her head was tilted forward and blond hair spilled across her face. He felt no pulse.

He reached the compartment containing the bathrooms. Three had the VACANT sign showing and he peered inside, They were empty. The fourth read OCCUPIED and was locked. Someone had to be inside to have slipped the latch.

He knocked loudly on the door and said, "Can you understand me? Help is here. Please try to unlock the door."

Pitt put his ear to the panel and thought he heard a soft sobbing from the other side, followed by low murmurs as if two people were conversing in hushed tones.

He raised his voice. "Stand back. I'm going to force the door. "

Pitt raised his dripping leg and gave a sharp but controlled kick, just enough to break the latch without smashing the door against whoever was inside. His heel impacted just above the knob and the catch ripped from the jam. The door gave about an inch. A gentle nudge with his shoulder and it swung inward.

Two women were huddled in the cramped rear of the bathroom, standing on top of the toilet platform out of the water, shivering and clutching each other for support. Actually, the one doing the clutching was a uniformed flight attendant, her eyes wide with alarm and the fear of a trapped doe. She was standing on her right leg, the left was stiffly extended to the side. A wrenched knee, Pitt guessed.

The other woman straightened and stared back at Pitt defiantly. Pitt immediately recognized her as the apparition at the window. Part of her face was still masked with coagulated blood, but both eyes were open now and had the cold look of hatred. Pitt was surprised at her hostility.

"Who are you and what do you want?" she demanded in a husky voice with a slight trace of an accent.

A dumb question was the first thought that crossed Pitts mind, but he quickly wrote off the woman's testy challenge to shock. He smiled his best Boy Scout trustworthy smile.

"My name is Dirk Pitt. I'm part of a rescue team from the United States ship Polar Explorer."

"Can you prove it?"

"Sorry, I left my driver's license at home." 'This was bordering on the ridiculous. He tried another tack and leaned against the door frame and casually crossed his arms. "Please rest easy," he said soothingly. "I want to help, not harm you."

The flight attendant seemed to relax for an instant, her eyes softened and the edges of her lips lifted in a timid smile. Then abruptly the fear returned and she sobbed hysterically.

"They're all dead, murdered!"

"Yes, I know," said Pitt gently. He held out his hand. "Let me take you where it's warm and the ship's doctor can tend your injuries."

Pitts face was shadowed by the floodlights irt the forward part of the cabin, and the stronger woman of the two could not read his eyes. "You might be one of the terrorists who caused all this," she said in a controlled tone. "Why should we trust you?"

"Because you'll freeze to death if you don't,"

Pitt tired of the word games. He stepped forward, carefully lifted the flight attendant in his arms and eased her out into the aisle. She offered him no resistance, but her body was stiff with apprehension.

"Just relax," he said. "Pretend you're Scarlett O'Hara and I'm Rhett Butler come to sweep you off your feet."

"I don't feel much like Scarlett. I must look a mess."

"Not to me," Pitt grinned. "How about dinner some night?"

"Can my husband come along?"

"Only if he picks up the check."

She gave in then and he felt her body sag in exhausted relief. Slowly her arms circled his neck and she buried her head in his shoulder. He paused and turned to the other woman. The warmth of his smile was revealed and his eyes glinted in the light. "Hang tight. I'll be right back for you."

for the first time Hala knew she was safe. Only then did the dam holding back the nightmare of fright, the stunning disbelief that any of this was happening to her, flood over the gates.

The suppressed emotions ran free, and she wept, Rubin knew he was slipping away. The cold and the pain had ceased to exist. The strange voices, the sudden display of light, formed no meaning for him. He felt detached, To his confused mind they were like obscure recollections from a distant place, a former time.

Suddenly a white brilliance filled the shattered cockpit. He wondered if this was the light at the end of the tunnel people who had died and returned claimed to have experienced.

A disembodied voice nearby said, "Take it easy, take it easy."

Rubin tried to focus his eyes on a vague figure hovering over him. "Are you God?"

Simon's face went blank for a brief moment. Then he smiled compassionately. "Only a mere mortal who happened to be in the neighborhood."

"I'm not dead?"

"Sorry, but if I'm any judge of age, you'll have to wait at least another fifty years."

"I can't move. My legs feel like they're pinned. I think they might be broken. Please . . . please get me out."

"That's why I'm here," said Simon cheerfully. He used his hands to scoop a good foot of ice and snow away from Rubin's upper torso until the trapped arms came free. "There, now you can scratch your nose until I return with a shovel and cutting tools."

Simon reentered the main cabin as Pitt was easing the flight attendant through the door into the waiting arms of Gale's medics, who gently lowerrd her onto a stretcher.

"Hey, Doc, I've got a live one in the cockpit."

"On my way," replied Gale.

"I could use your help too," Simon said to Pitt.

Pitt nodded. "Give me a couple of minutes to carry another from the aft section."

Hala slid to her knees and leaned over and looked into the mirror. There was enough light to clearly see her reflection. The face that stared back was flat-eyed and expressionless. It was also a disaster. She looked like an over-the-hill streetwalker who had been beaten up by her pimp.

She reached out and pulled several paper towels from a rack. She dipped them in the cold water, then wiped clear the clotted blood and lipstick which had smeared around her mouth. Her mascara and eye shadow looked as if they had been applied by Jackson Pollock on a drip painting. She wiped away that mess too. Her hair was still reasonably intact so she patted the loose ends into place.

She still looked awful, she thought despairingly. She forced a smile when Pitt reappeared, hoping she looked more presentable.

. He looked at her a long moment and then screwed his face into an expression of awed curiosity. "Excuse me, gorgeous creature, but have you seen an old crone anywhere?"

Tears welled in Hala's eyes and she half-laughed, halfcried. "You're a nice man, Mr. Pitt. Thank you."

"I try, God Icnows I try," he said humorously.

Pitt had returned with several blankets and he bundled them around her.

He placed one arm under her knees and the other around her waist and lifted her without the slightest sign of strain. As he carried her up the aisle his numbed legs began to give out and he stumbled for several steps before recovering.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Nothing a shot of Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey won't cure."

"As soon as I return home I'll send you a whole case."

"Where's home?"

"At the moment, New York."

"Next time I'm in town, let's have dinner together."

"I'd consider it an honor, Mister Pitt."

"Likewise, Miss Kaniil."

Hala raised her eyebrows. "You recognized me, looking horrible like this?"

"I admit it wasn't until after you'd fixed your face a bit."

"Forgive me for putting you to all this trouble. Your legs and feet must be frozen stiff."

"A minor discomfort is a small price for freezing.I held the SecretaryGeneral of the U.N. in my arms."

Amazing, truly amazing, thought Pitt. This has to be a redbanner day.

Dating the only three women, and attractive ones at that, within two thousand miles of frigid desolation inside of minutes had to be some sort of record. The feat meant more to him than discovering the Russian submarine.

Fifteen minutes later, after Hala, Rubin and the flight attendant were comfortably settled inside the helicopter, Pitt stood in front of the cockpit and waved to Giordino, who acknowledged with a thumbs up sign.

The rotors were engaged and the craft rose in the air above a swirling cloud of snow, swung around a hundred and eighty degrees and headed for the Polar Explorer. Only when it was safely airborne and on its way did Pitt hobble over to the auxiliary heating unit.

He pulled off his waterlogged boots and soggy socks and dangled his feet over the exhaust, soaking up the heat and gratefully accepting the stabbing pain of recirculation. He became vaguely aware of Simon's approach.

Simon stopped and stood, gazing at the wrinkled sides of the aircraft.

It did not look forlorn any more. To him, the knowledge of the dead inside gave it a camel house appearance.

"United Nations delegates," Simon said distantly, "is that who they were?"

"Several were members of the General Assembly," answered Pitt. "The

. lized agencies.

According to Kamil, most of them were returning from a tour of their Field Service organizations."

"Who'd gain by murdering them?"

Pitt wrung out his socks and laid them over the heater tube. "I have no idea."

"Middle East terrorists?" Simon persisted.

"News to me they've taken up murder by poison."

"How're your feet?"

"In a state of gradual thaw. How about yours?"

"The Navy issues foul-weather boots. Mine are dry and warm as toast."

"Hooray for considerate admirals," Pitt muttered sardonically.

"I'd say one of the three survivors did the dirty work."

Pitt shook his head. "If in fact it proves to be poison, it probably was introduced into the meal at the food services kitchen before it was loaded on board the aircraft."

"The chief steward or a flight attendant could have done it in the galley."

"Too difficult to poison over fifty meals one at a time without being detected."

"What about the drinks?" Simon tested again.

"You're a persistent bastard."

"Might as well speculate until we're relieved?"

Pitt checked his socks. They were still damp. "Okay, drinks are a possibility, especially coffee and tea."

Simon seemed pleased that one of his theories had been accepted. "Okay, smartass, of the three survivors who's your candidate for most duly suspect?"

"None of the above."

"You saying the culprit knowingly took the poison and committed suicide."

"No, I'm saying it was the fourth survivor."

"I only counted three."

"After the plane crashed. Before that there were four,"

"You don't mean the little Mexican fellow in the copilot's seat?"

"I do."

Simon looked totally skeptical. "What brilliant logic brought you to that conclusion?"

"Elementary," Pitt said with a sly grin. "The killer in the best murder-mystery tradition is always the least obvious suspect.

"Who dealt this mess?"

Julius Schiller, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, grimaced good-naturedly as he studied his cards. His teeth clamped on a cold stogie, he looked up and peered over his hand, his intelligent blue eyes moving from player to player.

Four men sat across the poker table from him. None smoked, and Schiller diplomatically refrained from lighting his cigar. A small bundle of cedar logs crackled in an antique mariner's stove, taking the edge off an early fall chill. The burning cedar gave an agreeable aroma to the teak-paneled dining saloon inside Schiller's yacht. The beautifully proportioned 35-meter-motor sailer was moored in the Potomac River near South Island just opposite Alexandria, Virginia.

Soviet Deputy Chief of Mission Aleksey Korolenko, heavybodied and composed, wore a fixed jovial expression that had become his trademark in Washington's social circles.

"A pity we're not playing in Moscow," he said in a stern but mocking tone. "I know a nice spot in Siberia where we could send the dealer."

"I second the motion," said Schiller. He looked at the man wfio had dealt the cards. "Next time, Date, shuffle them up."

"If your hands are so rotten," growled Dale Nichols, Special Assistant to the President, "why don't you fold?"

Senator George Pitt, who headed up the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stood and removed a salmon-colored sport jacket. He draped it over the back of the chair and turned to Yuri Vyhousky.

"I don't know what these guys are complaining about. You and I have yet to will a pot."

The Soviet Embassy's Special Adviser on American Affairs nodded. "I haven't seen a good hand since we all began playing five years ago."