Текст книги "The Mediterranean Caper"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

TALLY

The sky was a brilliant ceiling of blue as far as the eye could see. The summer air was hot and dripping with unseen humidity encouraged by burning waves from the blazing sun. In blinding radiance, tall white buildings stood like small chiseled mountains and reflected the heat onto the black asphalt pavement below; the traffic was heavy, and the sidewalks were crowded with scurrying office workers on lunch break as Pitt pushed aside the wide glass doors and limped stiffly into the air conditioned lobby of the Bureau of Narcotics building.

For a bachelor, he thought, one of the wonderful things about Washington, D.C. is the overabundance of girls. They come in every size, age, and disposition and swarm like chattering locusts throughout every government office in the city, providing the hungry male with all the advantages of a rich kid running amok in a candy store. Pitt selected his most charming. devil-may-care smile and offered it to a trio of giggling secretaries who exited the elevator. They returned his smile, accompanied with the usual combination of cursory and demure glances that women are prone to allow for strange men, and then wiggled past him into the lobby, sneaking an additional peek at him over their shoulders.

A moment later, playing the role of the wounded Warrior to perfection, Pitt leaned heavily on his cane and limped from the elevator onto the thick carpet of the eighth floor. In the center of the anteroom a dozen girls, displaying an unrestricted forest of nyloned legs, sat at a dozen desks and furiously assaulted a dozen typewriters, never once hesitating to look up at him. He moved slowly over to a well-bosomed blond whose desk top contained a small rectangular sign: “Information.” Then for a moment he stared down at her, admiring the view.

“Excuse me.”

She didn’t hear him over the din of the clacking machines.

“Excuse me,” Pitt repeated loudly.

She turned and noticed him. “May I help you?” The voice was cool, the big hazel eyes unfriendly. Pitt admitted to himself that he had to go along with her icy greeting. The white turtleneck sweater, the green California sport coat, the handkerchief casually fluffed from the breast pocket hardly categorized him as an executive or important Washington bureaucrat.

“I would like to see the Director of the Bureau.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, turning back to her typewriter. “The Director is extremely busy and cannot see anyone.”

Contempt and anger began to mount in Pitt. “Inspector Zacynthus made an appointment for me—”

“Inspector Zacynthus’ office is on the fourth floor,” the girl droned mechanically.

A gunshot couldn’t have received more attention than the resounding bang from Pitt’s cane as he slammed it on top of the receptionist’s desk. The typists’ eyes burst wide, and their hands froze above keyboards, sending the anteroom into a sudden dead silence. Her face drained of all color, the large-cheated blond stared up at Pitt. a fear mushrooming inside her.

“OK, dearheart.” Pitt said menacingly. “You get up off your well-rounded little bottom and you go and inform the Director that Major Dirk Pitt is waiting to keep the appointment set by Inspector Zacynthus.”

“Pitt… Major Pitt from NUMA,” the blond gasped. “Oh I’m sorry, sir. But I thought—”

“Yes, I know,” Pitt offered. “I’m out of uniform.”

The blond jumped from her desk, snagging a stocking in her haste. “Right this way, Major. They’re expecting you.”

Pitt grinned at her, grinned at the other girls sitting awed in their chairs, felt self-satisfied at the admiring expressions from all twenty-four eyes, the bovine, adoring gaze reserved for celebrities and movie stars.

It inflated his male ego.

“Keep typing girls,” he said good-naturedly.

“Mustn’t keep the Bureau waiting for all those letters and reports.”

The blond led him down a long hallway, slowing her pace every so often to allow him to catch up. She halted and rapped on a walnut stained door. “Major Pitt,” she announced, and then stood aside to let him pass through.

Three men rose as he walked into the room. The fourth, Giordino, remained comfortably anchored to a long leather couch.

“I thought I'd never see the day,” he said. “Dirk Pitt hobbling around on a cane.”

“Just practicing for my senile years,” Pitt retorted.

A short, red-haired man with a zeppelin-shaped cigar stashed jauntily between his lips came over and shook Pitt’s, hand. “Welcome back, Dirk. Congratulations on a great job in the Aegean.”

Pitt stared into the griffin-featured face of Admiral James Sandecker, the crusty chief of the National Underwater Marine Agency.”

“Thank you, Admiral. Any word on the Teaser yet?”

“Only that it’s alive and still swimming,” Sandecker answered. “Since Gunn had it flown over last week in a special tank, I haven’t been able to get near the goddamn thing – a horde of scientists have been crowded around it, ogling their damn eyes right out of their sockets. They promised me a preliminary report by morning.”

Zacynthus came across to greet Pitt. He seemed younger, much more relaxed than when. Pitt had last seen him, three weeks previously.

“Good to see you walking again,” Zacynthus said smiling. “You look as mean and nasty as ever.”

He took Pitt by the arm and led him over to a tall man standing by the window and introduced them. Pitt studied the Director of the Bureau and was studied in return by hard gray eyes that peered intently from a high-checked. pockmarked face; it was a face straight out of a police lineup. Pitt amusingly reflected that the Director looked more like a narcotics smuggler than the chief administrator of several thousand federal investigators. The Director spoke first.

“I've looked forward to meeting you, Major Pitt The Bureau is deeply grateful for your assistance.” The voice was low and very precise.

“I didn’t do much. Inspector Zacynthus and Colonel Zeno carried most of the load.”

The Director met his eyes evenly. “That may be, but you carry the scars.” He motioned Pitt to a chair and offered him a cigarette. “Did you have a good flight from Greece?”

Pitt lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Air Force cargo planes aren’t exactly famous for their cuisine and royal coachman service, but I must admit that it was considerably more relaxing than the flight in.”

Admiral Sandecker gave Pitt a puzzled look. “Why the Air Force? You could have flown from Athens on Pan Am or TWA.”

“Souvenirs,” Pitt laughed. “One of my mementos of Thasos was too bulky to fit in the luggage compartment of a commercial airliner. Colonel Lewis came to my rescue and helped me hitch a ride on a half-empty Air Force cargo plane that was headed stateside.”

“Your wound,” Sandecker nodded at Pitt’s leg. “Healing all right?”

“It’s still a bit stiff,” Pitt answered. “Nothing a thirty day medical leave won’t cure.”

The Admiral eyed Pitt shrewdly for a moment through a blue haze of cigar smoke. “Two weeks.” The tone reeked of cool authority. “I have more faith in your recuperative powers than you have.”

The Director cleared his throat. “I’ve read Inspector Zacynthus’ report with a great deal of interest.

There is, however, one point he didn’t cover. It isn’t important. but out of personal curiosity, I wonder if you could tell me. Major how you came to the conclusion that Minerva Lines ships had the capacity to carry submarines?”

Pitt smiled with his eyes. “I guess you might say, sir, the secret was written in the sand.”

The Director’s lips curled in a humorless smile. He wasn’t used to indirect answers.. “Very Homeric, Major, but hardly the answer I had in mind.”

“Strange but true,” Pitt said. “After finding no sign of the heroin on board the Queen Artemisia, I swam to the beach and began doodling with a stick in the sand. A detachable submarine seemed like an abstract idea at first. but the more

I doodled, the more concrete it became.”

The Director leaned back in his chair and shook his head sadly. “Forty years, a hundred agents from twelve different nations all struggling under the most adverse conditions imaginable to break von Till’s smuggling operation. Three of those agents gave up their lives in the struggle” He looked gravely across the desk at Pitt “Somehow it almost seems a tragic joke that our efforts overlooked a solution that was so apparent to someone standing on the outside looking in.”

Pitt stared at him in silence.

“By the way,” the Director continued suddenly cheerful, “I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to hear the results of our Galveston stakeout?”

“No sir.” Pitt carefully tapped an ash in an ashtray. “Until five minutes ago I haven’t seen or talked to Inspector Zacynthus since we parted on Thasos. nearly three weeks ago I’ve had no way of knowing whether my small assist paid off for you in Galveston or not.”

Zacynthus looked at the Director. “May I fill Major Pitt in, sir?”

The Director nodded.

Zacynthus turned to Pitt.

“Everything went according to plan. Five miles outside the harbor we were met by a small fleet of von Till’s fishing boats – a bit tricky at this point, not knowing the proper identification signals. Luckily I persuaded the Queen Jocasta’s captain – with the threat of castration with a rusty knife-to desert the enemy and join our side.”

“Did anyone come aboard?” Pitt asked.

“There was no danger of that,” Zacynthus replied.

“A boarding party would have looked too damned suspicious to a passing patrol boat. The fishermen merely stood off and signaled us to detach the sub. Interesting piece of machinery, that sub. The Navy engineers who studied it coming across the Atlantic were quite impressed.”

“What made it so unique?” “It was fully automatic.”

“A drone?” Pitt asked incredulously.

“Yes, another one of von Till’s clever innovations. You see, if the sub had an accident or was detected by the Harbor Patrol before it reached the cannery there was no way in hell it could be traced or connected to Minerva Lines. And without a crew there would be no one to interrogate.”

Pitt was intrigued. “Then it was controlled by one of the fishing boats.”

Zacynthus nodded. “Right up the middle of the harbor’s main channel and under the pilings of the cannery. Only this trip the sub carried several uninvited stowaways: myself and ten marines on loan from the Mediterranean Tenth Fleet I might add that the cannery was surrounded by thirty of the Bureau’s best agents.”

“If Galveston had more than one cannery,” Giordino said thoughtfully, “you’d have been in big trouble.”

Zacynthus grinned knowingly. “As a matter of fact, Galveston boasts a total of four canneries, all located on pilings over the water.”

Giordino didn’t have to ask the obvious question. It was written all over his face.

“I’ll put your mind at ease,” Zacynthus said. “The Bureau’s Gulf Ports Department had each cannery under surveillance for two weeks before the Queen Jocasta’s arrival. The tip-off came when one of them received a shipment of sugar.”

Pitt raised an eyebrow. “Sugar?”

“Sugar,” the Director offered, “is often used to adulterate the heroin and boost the quantity. By the time pure heroin is cut by the middle man and cut again by the dealer, the original supply is increased by a substantial amount.”

Pitt thought for a moment “So the one hundred and thirty tons was only a beginning?”

“It could have been the beginning,” Zacynthus answered, "if it wasn’t for you, old friend. You’re the only one who saw through von Till’s plan. If you and Giordino hadn’t arrived at Thasos when you did, the rest of us would be sitting up in Chicago about now, forming a daisy chain and kicking each other into Lake Michigan.”

Pitt grinned. “Write it off to luck.”

“Call it what you will,” Zacynthus retorted. “As things stand at the moment, we have over thirty of the biggest illegal drug importers in the country waiting for indictment, including everyone connected with the trucking company that transported the goods. And that’s only the half of it. When we searched the cannery office we found a book with the names of nearly two thousand dealers from New York to Los Angeles. For the Bureau it was comparable to a prospector discovering the mother lode.”

Giordino let out a long whistle. “It’s going to be a bad year for the addicts.”

“That’s right,” Zacynthus said. “Now that their main source is dried up, and the local law enforcement agencies are rounding up the dealers, the users are about to face the worst drug famine to come along in the last twenty years.”

Pitt’s eyes left the zoom and gazed out the window, seeing nothing. “There is just one more question.”

Zacynthus looked at him. “Yes?’

Pitt didn’t reply immediately. He fiddled with his cane a moment. “What became of our old friend? I’ve seen no mention of him in the newspapers.”

“Before I answer you, take a look at these.” Zacynthus pulled a pair of photographs from a briefcase and laid them in front of Pitt side by side on the desk.

Pitt leaned over and studied them carefully. The first was a snapshot of a light-haired man who wore the uniform of a German naval officer He was caught in a relaxed pose, standing on the bridge of a ship and peering out to sea, his hands resting carelessly on a pair of binoculars that hung around his neck The face in the second photograph stared back at Pitt with the familiar leer of a shaven-skulled Erich von Stroheim. A huge white dog stood at the lower half of the picture, crouched as if ready to spring. An involuntary chill crept through Pitt’s body as he remembered– remembered all too vividly.

“There doesn’t seem to be much of a resemblance.”

Zacynthus nodded. “Admiral Heibert did a remarkable job – scars, birthmarks, even his dental fillings matched von Till’s.”

“What about fingerprints?"

“Impossible to prove anything. There were no known records of von Till’s prints, and Helbert had his altered by surgery.”

Pitt sat back puzzled. “Then how can we be sure—”

“The uninvited detail,” Zacynthus said slowly. “No matter how exhaustingly they try or how diligently they plan, all criminals get their tails pinned to the wall by the uninvited detail. In Heibert’s case it was von Till’s scalp?”

Pitt shook his head. “I don’t follow you.”

“When von Till was a young man, he contracted a skin disease called Alpecia areata which caused complete baldness Heibert didn’t know this. He thought von Till had shaved his head in the Prussian tradition, so quite naturally he took to the razor. It didn’t take the War Criminals investigators long to spot the growth. There was, of course, later evidence that confirmed Admiral Heibert’s identity, but the hair was the first nail in the coffin.”

Pitt suddenly felt a vague mixture of relief and satisfaction. “Has he swung yet?”

“Four days ago,” Zacynthus said matter of factly. “You saw nothing in the newspapers because there was nothing The Germans kept his capture and death quiet. They’re sick and tired of having the mud of their Nazi past rubbed in their faces every time an old war criminal is ferreted out. Besides, Heibert didn’t have the same notoriety as Bormann and a few others of Hitler’s personal clique.”

“Makes you wonder how many more are scattered around the world,” Pitt murmured.

The telephone on the desk buzzed, and the Director picked it up. “Yes.. yes, I'll pass along the good news, thank you.” He replaced the telephone in its cradle, his pitted face split in a wide grin, and he turned to Sandecker. “That was your office, Admiral. Allow me to be the first to offer my congratulations.”

Sandecker rolled the cigar to one side of his mouth. “What in hell for?”

The Director, still grinning, stood up and laid his hand on the Admiral’s shoulder. “It seems that your marine oddity turned out to be a viviparous female. Consequently, you, sir, are now the proud papa of a bouncing baby Teaser.”

The steaming heat was beginning to fade, and the lengthening shadows were stretching far behind the late afternoon sun when Pitt limped out onto the sidewalk He paused a moment and looked at the city.

The streets were busy with homeward bound traffic, and soon all the surrounding buildings would be mute and deserted.

He looked toward the Capitol building in the distance, its white dome transformed into a blazing gold tint from the falling sun, and he remembered another scene on a faraway beach and a white ship and a vibrant blue sea. It seemed so long ago, nearly an eternity.

Giordino and Zacynthus came down the steps and joined him.

Zacynthus spoke jovially. “Gentlemen, I suggest that since we are all single, debonair men-about-town we combine forces and engage in a bit of fun and frolic.”

“I’ll buy that,” Giordino volunteered.

Pitt shrugged in mock sadness. “It wounds me deeply, but I must decline your intriguing invitation. I already have a previous engagement.”

“I think this is where I came in,” Giordino moaned.

Zacynthus laughed. “You’re making a big mistake. I happen to possess a little black book which contains the phone numbers of some of Washington’s fairest—”

Zacynthus suddenly stopped in midsentence and stared at the Street, his eyes wide in blank astonishment.

A gargantuan black-and-silver car rolled silently up to the curb and stopped. Elegant in design, majestic in appearance, the regal coachwork seemed out of place beside the more modern mechanized traffic, like a queen of the realm amid a bustling crowd of foul-smelling rabble. And as a fitting touch, the piece de resistance, a lovely dark-haired girl graced the steering wheel.

“Good lord,” Zacynthus gasped. “Von Till’s Maybach.” He turned to Pitt. “How did you get it?”

"To the victor belong the spoils,” Pitt grinned slyly.

Giordino raised an eyebrow. “Now I see what you meant by a bulky souvenir. I might add that your other souvenir isn’t half bad either.”

Pitt opened the front door of the car. “I think you both know my ravishing chauffeur.”

“She reminds me of a girl I once met in the Aegean,” Giordino said smiling. “But this one is much better looking.”

The girl laughed. “Just to show that flattery has its reward, I forgive you for that rough ride through the labyrinth. Only next time give me warning so I can put on some decent clothes.”

Giordino looked genuinely sheepish. “I promise.”

Pitt turned to Zacynthus. There was a faint smile in Pitt’s eyes. “Do me a favor, will you Zac?"

“if I can.”

"I'd like to borrow the services of one of your agents for a couple of weeks. Do you think you can arrange it?”

Zacynthus looked down at the girl and nodded. “I think so. The Bureau owes you that much.”

Pitt climbed Into the front seat and closed the door. Then he handed his cane out to Giordino. “Here, I don’t think I’ll be needing this anymore.”

Before Giordino could make an appropriate reply, the girl engaged the clutch, and the big town car slipped into the moving line of traffic.

Giordino watched the high-roofed car until it rounded a distant corner and was lost from sight. Then he turned and looked at Zacynthus.

“How are you at whipping up scallops with mushrooms in white wine sauce?”

Zacynthus shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve never graduated beyond frozen TV dinners.”

“In that case, you can buy me a drink.”

“You forget, I’m only a poor civil servant.”

“Then look upon me as an item on your expense account."

Zacynthus tried to look serious but tailed. Then he shrugged. “Shall we?”

“Lets.”

So arm in arm, much to the amusement of passerbys, the tall Zacynthus and the short Giordino, looking all the world like Mutt and Jeff, began walking down the sidewalk In the direction of the nearest bar.