Текст книги "Iceberg"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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"I'm afraid, Doctor, that you're an innocent bystander that must be eliminated simply because you can recognize their faces."

"And you, Major, why have they concocted such an elaborate, scheme to kill you?"

"Dr. Hunnewell and I also saw something that we shouldn't have."

Jonsson stared into Pitts impassive face. "it would be impossible to murder us both without creating excitement in the village. Iceland is a small country. A fugitive could not run very far nor hide very long."

"These men are no doubt professionals when it comes to killing Someone is paying them and paying them well. An hour after we're dead, they'll probably be relaxing with a drink in one hand aboard a jetliner bound for either Copenhagen, London or Montreal."

"They seem lax for professional assassins."

"They can afford to be. Where can we go? Their car and Mundsson's truck are in front of the house-they'd easily cut us off before we could open a door." Pitt swung a hand toward a window. "Iceland is open country. There aren't ten trees within fifty miles. You said it yourself, a fugitive could not run very far nor hide very long."

Jonsson bowed his head in silent acceptance, then he grinned faintly. "'Then our only alternative is to fight. It is going to be difficult taking a life after spending thirty years trying to save them."

"Do you have any firearms?"

Jonsson sighed heavily. "No, my bobby is fishing, not bunting. The only equipment I possess that might be classed as weapons are my surgical instruments."

Pitt walked over to a white steel-framed, glasspaneled cabinet that held an assortment of neatly arranged medical instruments and drugs, and opened the door. "We have one convenient advantage," he said thoughtfully. "They don't know we're wise to their nasty little plot. Therefore, we shall introduce them to a good old American game known as Pin the Tali on the Donkey."

Only two more minutes had elapsed when Jonsson opened the door to the examining room, revealing Pitt parked on a stool holding a bandage to his bleeding head. Jonsson motioned to the blond man who spoke English.

"Could you please assist me for a moment? I am afraid that I need a third hand."

The man raised his eyebrow questioningly, then shrugged to his partner, who sat with his eyes half closed, his over-confidence giving birth to thoughts a thousand miles away.

Jonsson, keeping any suspicion at a low level, purposely left the door slightly ajar, but not enough to allow vision of more than a fraction of the examining room. "If you could hold the major's head on a slight angle with both hands, then I can finish without interruption.

He keeps twitching and ruining any chance for a neat stitch job." Jonsson winked and then spoke in Icelandic. "These Americans are like children when it comes to pain."

The fraudulent policeman laughed and nudged the doctor with his elbow. Then he walked around in front of Pitt, bent down and gripped Pitts head with both hands on the temples. "Come, come, Major Pitt, a few stitches are nothing. What if the good doctor had to amputate your-" It was all over in less than four seconds-silently.

With seeming indifference and nonchalance, Pitt reached up his hands and grabbed the blond man around the wrists. Surprise showed for a brief instant in the stranger's face, then true shock as Jonsson clamped a heavy gauze pad over his mouth and jammed a syringe against his neck in the same movement. ne shock gave way to terror, and he moaned in his throat, a moan that could not be heard because Pitt was loudly cursing Jonsson for a nonexistent sewing operation. The eyes above the white gauze began to lose focus, and the man made a desperate effort to hurl himself backward, but his wrists were held solidly in the vise of Pitts grip.

Then the eyes turned upward and he quietly collapsed into Jonsson's arms.

Pitt quickly knelt down and pulled a service revolver from the unconscious man's belt holster and stepped softly to the door. As soundless as he was swift, he lined up the gun and jerked open the door, swinging it all the way to its stop. For a second the touth-looking brute with the spectacles sat there in stunned immobility, staring at Pitt in the doorway. Then his hand shot to his holster.

"Freeze!" Pitt ordered.

The command was ignored, and a shot blasted through the small waiting room. There are many who claim the hand is quicker than the eye, but there are few who will take the stand that the hand is quicker than a speeding bullet. The gun flew from the bogus policeman's hand as Pitts shell tore into the wooden grip, taking a thumb along with it.

Never before had Pitt seen such dazed uncomprehension and shocked 1). in the paid killer stared at the bloody half-inch stump where his thumb had been. Pitt made to lower his gun, but raised and aimed it again as he caught the look on his opponent's face-mouth tightened to a thin white line, black hatred glaring out from the squinting eyes behind the glasses.

"Shoot me, Major, quickly, cleanly here!" He tapped his chest with his uninjured hand.

"Well, well, so you speak English. My compliments, you never gave me the slightest hint that you understood any of the conversation."

"Shoot me!" The words seemed to echo in the little room and in Pitts ears for an interminable time.

"Why rush things? There's every possibility you'll hang for murdering Sergeant Amarson anyway." Pitt pulled the hammer of the revolver back for single-action g. "I take it I'm safe in assuming you did kill?"

"Yes, the sergeant is dead. Now please do the same for me." The eyes were cold, yet pleading.

"You're pretty anxious to get yourself planted."

Jonsson looked but said nothing. Totally off balance, he struggled to graspr a new set of circumstances, a complete reversal of all his previous values. As a doctor, he couldn't just stand there and watch an injured man bleed profusely without aid.

"Let me take care of the hand," Jonsson volunteered.

"Stay behind me and don't move," Pitt said. "Any man who wants to die is more dangerous than a cornered rat."

"But good Lord, man, you cannot stand there and gloat over his pain," Jonsson protested.

Pitt ignored Jonsson. "Okay, four eyes, I'll make a deal with you. The next bullet goes through your heart if you tell me the name of the man who pays your salary."

The animal-like eyes behind the glasses never left Pitts face. He shook his head silently and said nothing.

"This isn't wartime, friend. You're not betraying your god or country. Loyalty to an employer is hardly worth your life."

"You will kill me, Major. I shall make you kill me." He advanced toward Pitt.

"I'll give you credit," Pitt said. "You're a persistent bastard."

He pulled the trigger and the revolver roared again, the.38 bullet smashing into the burly character's left leg just above the knee.

Rarely had Pitt seen such disbelief in a human face. The paid killer slowly sank to the floor, his left hand clutching his torn left leg, trying to stem the blood flow, his right hand lying motionless on the tile, surrounded by a growing pool of red.

It seems our friend has nothing to say," Pitt said.

He pulled back the hammer to fire again.

"Please do not kill him," Jonsson pleaded. "His life is not worth the burden on your soul. I beg you, Major, let me have the gun. He can cause no further harm."

Pitt hesitated several moments, torn between compassion and revenge. Then, slowly, he handed the revolver to Jonsson and nodded. Jonsson took it and put his hand on Pitts shoulder as if in secret understanding.

"I am heartbroken that countrymen of mine should cause so much grief and pain to so many," the doctor said with weariness in his voice. "I will take care of these two and contact the authorities immediately. You go with Mundsson to Reykjavik and rest. You have a nasty-looking head wound, but it won't prove serious unless You aggravate it. Stay in bed for at least two days. That is a direct order from your doctor."

"There appears to be a slight obstacle to your prescription." Pitt smiled crookedly and pointed through the front doorway. "You were one hundred percent correct about creating excitement in the village." He nodded in the direction of the road where at least twenty villagers stood silently holding every type of weapon from telescopic rifles to small-bore shotguns, all aimed steadily at the door of Jonsson's cottage. Mundsson was resting his gun easily in the crook of one arm, one foot solidly on the second doorstep, his son Biarni slightly off to one side with an old Mauser bolt-action rifle.

Pitt held both hands out where they could easily be seen. "I think now is an appropriate time, Doctor, to give me a recommendation. 'nese good townspeople aren't sure who plays the good guys or the bad guys."

Jonsson stepped past Pitt and spoke for several minutes in Icelandic. When he finished, the guns began to lower one by one and several of the villagers drifted toward their homes while a few lingered on the road to await further developments. Jonsson extended his hand, and Pitt gripped it.

"I fervently hope you meet with success in finding the man responsible for the terrible number of senseless murders," Jonsson said. "If you should meet him, I fear for your life. You are not a killer. If you were, two men would lie dead in my home. Your concern for life, I fear, will be your defeat. I beg you, my friend, do not hesitate when the moment arrives. God and luck go with you."

Pitt threw a last salute at Dr. Jonsson and turned and stepped down the front steps to the road. Bjarni held the passenger door of the Land Rover open for him. The seat was firm and the backrest stiff, but Pitt could not have cared less; his entire body was numb. He sat there as Mundsson started the engine and shifted through the gears, steering the truck over a stretch of smooth, narrow pavement toward Reykjavik. Pitt could have easily drifted off into a dead sleep, but somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind a spark refused to go out. Something that he saw, something that was said, an undistinguishable something refused to let his mind slow down and rest. It was like a song he couldn't quite recall whose title was on the tip of his tongue.

Finally, he gave it up and dozed off.

Chapter 7

Time after time, the exact number became lost, Pitt struggled up from the bottom of the rolling surf and staggered onto the beach dragging Hunnewell. Time after time, he bandaged the oceanographer's arm only to slide into darkness again. Desperately, every time the event ran through his brain like an image from a film projector, he tried to hang onto those fleeting moments of consciousness, only to lose out to the inevitable fact that nothing can change the past. It was a nightmare, he thought vaguely as he tried to tear himself away from the bloodstained beach. He gathered his strength and with a mighty effort forced his eyes open, expecting to see an empty bedroom. The bedroom was there all right, but it wasn't empty.

"Good morning, Dirk," said a soft voice. "I'd almost lost hope that you would ever wake up."

Pitt looked up into the smiling brown eyes of a long-bodied girl who sat on a chair at the foot of his bed. "The last birdie with a Yellow bill who hopped upon my windowsill didn't resemble you in the slightest," he said.

She laughed, so did the brown eyes. She pushed the long strands of shining fawn-colored hair behind her ears. Then she stood up 'and walked around to the head of the bed with a movement that could best be described as mercury flowing down a meandering glass tube. She wore a red wool dress that clung to her precision-shaped hour-glass figure, the bern topping a pair of neatly sculptured knees. She wasn't exactly beautiful in the exotic sense nor was she overly sexy, but she was cute-damned cute-with a pert attractiveness that melted every man she met.

She touched the bandage on the side of his head, and the smile gave way to a feminine look of Florence Nightingale concern. "You've had a nasty time, hurt much?"

"Only when I stand on my head."

Pitt knew who she was. Her name was Tidi Royal and he knew her reason for genuine anxiety; he knew her fun and-games personality was misleading. She could pound out one hundred and twenty words a minute on a typewriter for eight hours without a yawn, and take shorthand a shade faster. The primary reasons why Admiral James Sandecker hired her as his private secretary-or so he steadfastly claimed.

Pitt pulled himself to a sitting position and peeked under the covers to see if he was wearing anything. He was, just barely-a pair of boxer shorts. "If you're here, it could only mean the admiral is close by."

Fifteen minutes after he got your message over the consulates radio, we were on a jet to Iceland. He's pretty shaken about Dr. Hunnewell's death. Admiral Sandecker blames himself."

"He's going to have to stand in line," Pitt said. "I got there first."

"He said you'd feel that way." Tidi tried to speak lightly but it didn't quite come off. "Guilt-ridden conscience, probably trying to redo the event in your mind."

"The admiral's extrasensory perception must be working overtime."

"Oh, no," she said. "I don't mean the admiral."

Pitt frowned quizzically.

"A Dr. Jonsson from a little vilage to the north called and gave the consulate very explicit instructions regarding your convalescence."

"Convalescence, crap!" Pitt snapped. "Which reminds me. What in hell are you doing in my bedroom?"

She looked hurt. "I volunteered."

"Volunteered?"

"To sit with you while you slept," she said. "Dr. Jonsson insisted. There's been a consulate staff member sitting in this room every minute since you closed your eyes last evening." Our "What time is it? "A few minutes past ten-A.m. I might add."

"God, I've wasted Nearly fourteen hours. What happened to my clothes?"

"Thrown out in the trash, I should imagine. They weren't fit for rags. You'll have to borrow some from a staff member."

"In that case, how about rounding up something casual while I take a quick shower and shave." He tossed her his bite-is-worse-than-bark look and said, "OK, dearheart, face the wall."

She remained facing the bed. "I've always wondered what it would be like to see you wake up in the morning."

He shrugged and threw back the covers. He was halfway through the motion of pushing himself to his feet when three things happened: his eyes suddenly saw three Tidis, the room swayed as though it was made of rubber, and his head began to ache with the mother of all aches.

Tidi stepped forward abruptly and clutched his right arm, her face reflecting the Florence Nightingale concern again. "Please, Dirk, your head isn't ready for your feet yet."

"Nothing, it's nothing. I stood up too fast." He made it to his feet and lurched into her arms. "You'd make a lousy nurse, Tidi. you get too involved with Your patients."

He held onto her for several moments until the triplets became one and the bedroom stood at rigid attention; only the ache in his head refused to diminish.

"You're the one Patient I'd love to get involved With, Dirk." She held onto him tightly and made no attempt to remove her arms. "But you never seem to entice me. You'd stand next to me in an empty elevator and never recognize me at all.

There are times when I doubt whether you know I exist."

"Oh, I know you exist all right." He pushed himself away and started slowly for the bathroom, refraining from facing her as he talked. "Your vital statistics are five foot seven, one hundred thirty-five pounds, thirty-six inches around the hips, an astonishing twenty-three inches at the waist, and the bust, a probable thirty-six, C-cup. All in all, a figure that belongs on the centerspread of Playboy. There is also the light-brown hair framing an eager, bright face enhanced by sparkling brown eyes, a pert little nose, a perfectly formed mouth flanked by two dimples that only show when you smile. Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Two moles behind the left ear and, at this moment, your heart is beating at approximately one hundred and five thumps per minute."

She stood there like a stunned winner on a TV quiz show momentarily at a loss for words. She reached up and touched the two moles. "Like wow! I can't believe I heard you. It's unreal. You like me-you really care for me."

"Don't get carried away." Pitt hesitated in the bathroom doorway and faced her. "I'm very attracted to you, as any man would be to a pretty girl, but I'm not in love with you."

"You… you never gave me any indication. You've never even asked me for a date."

"Sorry, Tidi. You're the admiral's personal secretary. I make it a rule never to play games that close to him." Pitt leaned against the doorframe for support. "I respect that old guy; he's much more than just a friend or boss. I won't cause complications behind his back."

"I understand," she said humbly. "But I certainly didn't figure you for the modest hero who sacrifices the heroine to a typewriter."

"The rejected virgin who throws herself into a convent isn't exactly your bag either."

"Must we get nasty?"

"No," Pitt said approvingly. "Why don't you be a good girl and scrounge me up a change of clothes, Let's see if you're as observant of my dimensions as I am of yours."

Tidi said nothing in reply, just stood there looking forlorn and curious. Finally she shook her head 'm a feminine display of irritation and left.

Exactly two hours later, clad in surprisingly wellfitting slacks and sport shirt, Pitt sat across a desk from Admiral James Sandecker. The admiral looked tired and old, far beyond his years. His red hair was tousled in a shaggy unkempt mane, and it was obvious from the stubble on his chin and cheeks that he hadn't shaved for at least two days. He held one of his massive cigars casually in the fingers of his right hand, stared at the long cylindrical shape for a moment, and then set it in an ashtray without lighting the end. He granted something about being glad to see Pitt alive and still connected in all the right places. Then the weary, bloodshot eyes studied Pitt intently.

"So much for preliminaries. Your story, Dirk. Let's have it."

Pitt didn't give it to him. Instead, he said: "I just spent an hour writing a detailed report of what occurred from the time Hunnewell and I lifted off from the NUMA pad at Dulles International until the farmer and his boy brought us to the consulate. I also included my personal opinions and observations.

Knowing you, Admiral, I'venture to guess you've read it at least twice. I have nothing to add. All I can do now is answer your questions."

What little of Sander-ker's face was open for expression seemed to indicate a certain interest, if not downright curiosity at Pitts flagrant, insubordinate behavior. He stood up, all five foot six inches of him, revealing a blue suit that cried out for a pressing, and peered down at Pitt, a favorite tactic when he was ready to orate.

"Once was all I needed, Major." No "Dirk" this time. "When I want sarcastic remarks, I'll book Don Rickles or Mort Sahl and be assured of a professional job. I appreciate the fact that you've been harassed by the Coast Guard and the Russians, had your butt frozen off on an iceberg looking at incinerated cadavers, not to mention getting shot at, crashing in the Atlantic Ocean, and having a man die in your arms since I pulled you off that nice warm beach in California just seventy-two hours ago. But that does not give you the unmitigated right to hard-ass your superior."

"I apologize for the disrespect, sir." The words were there, but the tone was sadly lacking. "If I seem a bit testy, it's simply because I smell a put-on. I have the distinct impression that you dropped me into an intricate maze without benefit of a road map."

"So?" An eighth of an inch lift of the heavy red eyebrows.

"To begin with, Hunnewell and I were on damn thin ice when we swindled the Coast Guard into using its finest cutter for a refueling base, or at least I thought we were. Not Hunnewell. He knew the whole setup was fixed from beginning to end. I thought we'd bought a jail cell when Commander Koski signaled Coast Guard Command in Washington for confirmation of our presence. I studied Hunnewell; he pored over his charts as if nothing was happening. No quiver of the hand, no indication of sweat on the brow. He was completely at ease with the situation, knowing that you had taken care of everything before we left Dulles."

"Not quite." Sandecker picked up the cigar and lit it and gave Pitt a shrewd look. "The commandant was inspecting a damn hurricane warning facility in Florida.

You were already crossing Novascotia before I could get to them." He blew a huge cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. "Please continue."

Pitt slouched back in his chair. "A dim, nearly undistinguishable outline of a ship turns up in an iceberg.

The Coast Guard doesn't have the slightest idea what registry it is. Yet four days go by and there is no investigation. The Catawaba is only hours away but is never notified of the sighting. Why? Somebody in the capitol with the authority, high authority, ordered hands off, that's why."

Sandecker toyed with the cigar. "I suppose you know what you're talking about, Major?"

"Hell, no… sir," Pitt answered. "Without the facts, I'm guessing. But you and Hunnewell didn't guess. There wasn't the slightest doubt in your minds that the derelict was the Lax, a ship that had been listed as missing for over a year. You had absolute proof.

How or where it came from I can't say, but you had it."

Pitts green eyes blazed into Sandecker's. "At this point my crystal ball gets foggy. I was surprised, but Hunnewell was genuinely stunned when we found that the Lax was burned to junk. This factor wasn't in the script, was it, Admiral? In fact, everything, including your wellplanned scheme, began to go down the drain. Someone you didn't count on was working against you. Someone with resources you or whatever agency in our government that is cooperating with you never considered.

"You lost control. Even the Russians were thrown off the track. You're up against a shrewd mind, Admiral. And the message is written in neon lights, this guy doesn't play for ice cream and cake at birthday parties.

He kills people like an exterminator kills tetes. The name of the game as advertised is zirconium. I don't buy it. People might kill one or two persons for a fortune, but not in wholesale lots. Hunnewell was your friend for many years, Admiral, mine for only a few days, and I lost him. He was my responsibility and I failed. His contributions to society outstrip anything I'm capable of. Better I'd have died on that beach'instead of him."

Sandecker showed no reaction to any of this. His unblinking eyes never left Pitts face as he sat behind the desk thoughtfully tapping the fingers of his right hand on the glass top. Then he stood up, came around the desk and put his hands on Pitts shoulders.

"Bullshit!" he said quietly but firmly. "It was a miracle you both made it to shore. There isn't a bookmaker in the world who would give odds on an unarmed helicopter knocking a machine-gun-toting jet out of the sky. I'm the one to blame. I had a hint of what was going to happen and I wasn't smart enough to read the cards. I didn't deal you in on the action because it wasn't necessary. You were the best man I could lay my hands on for a tricky chauffeur job. As soon as you got Hunnewell here to Reykjavik, I was going to put you on the next flight back to California." He paused to check his watch. "There's an Air Force reconnaissance jet leaving for Tyler Field, New Jersey, in one hour and six minutes. You can make connections for the West Coast when you get there."

"No, thanks, Admiral." Pitt rose from the chair and walked to the window, staring over the city's peaked and sun-splashed roofs. "I've heard that Icelandic women are coolly beautiful. I'd like to see for myself."

"I can make that an order."

"No good, sir. I understand what you're trying to do, and I'm grateful. The first attempt on my life and Hunnewell's was only half successful. The second was much more elaborate and cunning and was reserved for me alone. The third should be a masterpiece. I'd like to stick around and see how it's going to be staged."

"Sorry, Dirk." Sandecker was back on friendly terms again. "I'm not going to throw your life away with the wave of a hand. Before I stand at your graveside, I'll have you locked up and standing in front of a court-martial for willful destruction of government property."

Pitt smiled. "I've been meaning to talk to you about service regulations, Admiral." He came across the room and casually sat on the edge of the desk. "For the past year and a half, I have faithfully carried out all directives issued from your office. I've questioned none of them. However, the time has come, the walk in, to get a few facts straight. Number one: if it was possible-and it isn't-for you to court-martial me, I doubt if the Air Force would take it lightly if one of their officers was tried by a naval court. Second, and most important: NUMA is not the bridge of the flagship of the fleet. Therefore, you are not my commanding officer.

“You are simply my boss-no more, no less. If my insubordination infuriates your senses and naval traditions, then you have no other choice but to fire me. That's the way it is, Admiral, and we both know it."

For several seconds Sandecker made no comment, but his eyes glinted with a strange sort of amusement.

Then he threw back his head and began to laugh, a roaring, deep laugh that filled the room from carpet to ceiling. "God! If there is anything worse than a cocky Dirk Pitt, I hope it becomes infected with syphilis and rots in hell." He returned to the chair behind the desk and sat down, hands clasped behind his head. "OK, Dirk, I'll put you in at first string, but you'll be required to play straight ball, no fancy independent plays. Agreed?"

"You're the boss."

Sandecker winced noticeably. "Okay, out of respect for your ah… superior, suppose you give me the whole story from the beginning. I've read the written words, now I want to hear it orally, direct from the horse's mouth." He peered at Pitt with an expression that dared argument. "Shall we commence?"

Sandecker heard Pitt out, then said: " 'God save thee,' that's what he said?"

"That's all he said. Then he was gone. I'd hoped Dr. Hunnewell might have offered me a clue to the whereabouts of the Lax between the time it vanished and the time it became inbedded in the iceberg, but he volunteered nothing except a historical sketch of Kristjan Fyrie and a lecture on zirconium."

He did as he was told. I didn't want you involved "That was two days ago. Now I'm involved up to my neck." Pitt leaned over the desk toward the older man. "Let's have it, You sly old fox. What in hell is going on?"

Sandecker grinned. "For your sake, I'm going to take that as a compliment." He pulled out a bottom drawer and propped his feet on it.

"I hope you know what you're letting yourself in for."

"I don't have the vaguest idea, but tell me anyway.

"All right then." Sandecker leaned back in his swivel chair and puffed several times on his cigar. "This is what took place as far as it goes-too many pieces are missing for even a fifty percent glimpse at the overall picture. About a year and a half ago, Fyrie's scientists successfully designed and constructed a nuclear undersea probe that could identify fifteen to twenty different mineral elements on the ocean floor. The p e opera y posing elements to neutrons given off by a laboratory-produced element called celtinium-279. When activated by the neutrons, the elements on the ocean's bottom gave off gamma rays, which were then analyzed and counted by a tiny detector on the probe. During tests off Iceland, the probe detected and measured mineral samples of manganese, gold, nickel, titanium, and zirconium-the zirconium in huge and unheard-of amounts."

"I think I see. Without the probe, the zirconium could never be found again," Pitt said thoughtfully.

"The prize then is not the rare elements, but rather the probe itself."

"Yes, the probe opens a vast and untapped frontier for undersea mining. Whoever owns it won't control the world, of course, but possession could lead to a direct reshuffling of private financial empires and a healthy shot in the arm for the treasury of any country with a continental shelf containing a rich storehouse of minerals."

Pitt was silent for a few moments. "God, is it worth all the killing?"

Sandecker hesitated. "It depends upon how bad somebody wants it. There are men who wouldn't kill for every cent in the world, and there are others who wouldn't hesitate to slit a throat for the price of a meal."

"In Washington, you informed me that Fyrie and his scientific team were on their way to the U.S. to open negotiations with our defense contractors. I take it that was a little white lie?"

Sandecker smiled. "Yes, that was actually an understatement. Fyrie was scheduled to meet with the President and present him with the probe." He looked at Pitt, and then said more Positively: "I was the first One Fyrie notified when the tests on the probe proved successful. I don't know what Hunnewell told you about Fyrie, but he was a visionary a gentle man who wouldn't step on an ant or a flower. He knew the far reaching good the probe would bring to mankind; he also knew what unscrupulous interests would do to exPloit it once the probe fell into their hands, so he decided to turn it over to the nation that he 'was certain would make beneficial and charitable use of its potential-so much noble crap in my book. But you have to give the do-gooders of the earth credit; they make an honest stab at helping the rest of us ungrateful rabble."

His face looked pained. "A goddamned shame. Kristjan Fyrie would be alive this minute if he'd been rotten and selfish."

Pitt grinned knowingly. It was a well-advertised fact that Admiral Sandecker, in spite of his boiler-plate exterior, was at hart a humanitarian, and he rarely disguised his disgust and hatred for greed-driven industrialists-an outspoken trait that didn't exactly make him in great demand as a guest at society dinner parties.