Текст книги "Night Probe!"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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Mercier felt no sense of elation about what he must do. He liked James Sandecker, respected the man's candor and forthright manner of organization. But there was no dodging an immediate inquiry into the loss of the Doodlebug. He dared not wait and run the risk of a security breach that would bring the news media circling like vultures. He had to quickly formulate plans for bringing the admiral, and the White House, through the mess without a national outcry.

His secretary's voice came over the intercom. "Admiral Sandecker is here, sir."

"Show him in."

Mercier half expected to see a man haggard from lack of sleep, a man saddened by death and tragedy, but he was mistaken.

Sandecker strode into the room resplendent in gold braid and beribboned uniform. A newly lit cigar was firmly anchored in one corner of his mouth, and his eyes twinkled with their usual gleam of cockiness. If he was going under the magnifying glass, he was obviously going in style.

"Please have a seat, Admiral," said Mercier, rising. "The Security Council meets in a few minutes."

"You mean the inquisition," said Sandecker.

"Not so. The President simply wants to learn the facts behind the Doodlebug's development and place the events of the last thirty-six hours in proper perspective."

"You're not wasting any time. It hasn't been eight hours since my men were murdered."

"That's a bit harsh."

"What else would you call it?"

"I'm not a jury," said Mercier quietly "I want you to know I truly regret that the project didn't work out."

"I'm prepared to shoulder all blame."

"We're not looking for a scapegoat, only the facts, which you've been most reluctant to reveal."

"I've had my reasons."

"We'll be most interested in hearing them." The intercom beeped. "Yes?"

"They're ready for you."

"On our way." Mercier motioned toward the door. "Shall we?"

They stepped into the White House cabinet room. A blue rug matched the drapes and on the north wall a portrait of Harry Truman peered from above the fireplace. The President sat at the center of a huge oval mahogany table, his back to the terrace overlooking the rose garden. Directly opposite, the vice president scratched notes on a pad. Admiral Kemper was present as was Secretary of Energy Dr. Ronald Klein, Secretary of State Douglas Oates and the Director of Central Intelligence, Martin Brogan.

The President came over and greeted Sandecker warmly. "It's a pleasure to see you, Admiral. Please sit down and get comfortable. I believe you know everyone present."

Sandecker nodded and took a vacant chair at the end of the table. He sat alone and distant from the others.

"Now then," the President said for openers, "suppose you tell us about your mysterious Doodlebug."

Dirk Pitt's secretary, Zerri Pochinsky, walked into the computer room with a cup of coffee and a sandwich on a tray. The rims of her hazel eyes were watery. She found it difficult to accept the fact of her boss's death. The shock of losing someone so close had not fully settled about her. It would come later, she knew, when she was alone.

She found Giordino straddling a chair, his elbows and chin nestled on the backrest. He was staring at the row of inert computers.

She sat down next to him. "Your favorite," she said softly. "Pastrami on wheat."

Giordino shook his head at the sandwich but drank the coffee. The caffeine did little to relieve the frustration and anger of having had to watch Pitt and the others die while he stood helpless to prevent it.

"Why don't you go home and get some sleep," Zerri said. "Nothing can be accomplished by staying here."

Giordino spoke as if in a trance. "Pitt and I went back a long way."

"Yes, I know."

"We played high-school football together. He was the shrewdest, most unpredictable quarterback in the league."

"You forget, I've been present when you two reminisced. I can almost give you an instant replay."

Giordino turned to her and smiled. "Were we that bad?"

Zerri smiled back through her tears. "You were that bad."

A team of computer technicians came through the door. The man in charge came over to Giordino. "Sorry to interrupt, but I have orders to break down the project and move the equipment to another section of the departments."

"Erase– the-evidence time, is it?"

"Sir?"

"Did you clear this with Dr. King?"

The man solemnly nodded his head. "Two hours ago. Before he left the building."

"Speaking of home," said Zerri. "Come along. I'll do the driving."

Obediently Giordino rose to his feet and rubbed his aching eyes. He held the door open and gestured for Zerri to exit first. He started to follow her, but suddenly stopped on the threshold.

He came within a hair of missing it. Later, he could never explain why an unfathomable urge made him turn for one final look.

The wink of light was so brief he would have missed it if his eyes hadn't been aimed in the right direction at the right moment. He shouted at the technician who had just switched off the circuits. "Turn them back on!"

"What for?" demanded the technician.

"Damn it, turn the circuits back on!"

One look at Giordino's scowling features was enough. There was no argument this time. The technician did as he was told.

Suddenly the room lost all dimension. Everyone recoiled as though witnessing the birth of some grotesque apparition. Everyone except Giordino. He stood immobile, his lips spreading in a surprised, joyous smile.

One by one, the computers returned to life.

"Let me get this straight," said the President, his face clouded with doubt. "You say this Doodlebug of yours can see through ten miles of solid rock?"

"And identify fifty-one different minerals and metal traces within it," Sandecker replied without blinking an eye. "Yes, Mr. President, I said exactly that."

"I didn't think it was possible," said CIA Director Brogan. "Electromagnetic devices have had limited success measuring the electrical resistivity of underground minerals, but certainly nothing of this magnitude."

"How is it a project of such importance was researched and developed without presidential or congressional knowledge?" asked the vice-president.

"The former president knew," Sandecker explained. "He had a fancy for supporting futuristic concepts. As I'm sure you're aware of by now, he secretly funded an undercover think tank called Meta Section. It was Meta Section scientists who designed the Doodlebug. Wrapped in security, the plans were given to NUMA. The President arranged the bankroll, and we built it."

"And it actually works?" the President pressed.

"Proof positive," Sandecker answered. "Our initial test runs have pinpointed commercially obtainable deposits of gold, manganese, chromium, aluminum and at least ten other elements including uranium."

The men around the table had a varied display of expressions. The President looked at Sandecker strangely. Admiral Kemper's face was impassive. The rest stared in open disbelief.

"Are you suggesting you can determine the extent of the deposit as well as an appraisal of its worth?" Douglas Oates asked dubiously.

"Within a few seconds of detecting the element or mineral, the Doodlebug computes a precise evaluation of ore reserve data, projected mining costs and operating profits and, of course, the exact coordinates of the location." If Sandecker's audience had appeared skeptical before, they looked downright incredulous now. Energy Secretary Klein asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

"How does the thing work?"

"The same basic principle as radar or marine depth sounders, except that the Doodlebug transmits a sharply focused, concentrated pulse of energy straight down into the earth. This high energy beam, similar in theory to a radio station that broadcasts different sound tones over the air, throws out various signal frequencies that are reflected by the geological formations it encounters. My engineers refer to it as sweep modulation. You can compare it to shouting across a canyon. When your voice hits a rock wall, you get a distinct echo. But if there are trees or foliage in the way, the echo comes back muffled."

"I still don't understand how it can identify specific minerals," said a confused Klein.

"Each mineral, each element in the makeup of the earth resonates at its own peculiar frequency. Copper resonates at about two thousand cycles. Iron at twenty-two hundred. Zinc at four thousand. Mud, rock and sand shale each have an individual signature that determines the quality of the signal that strikes and reflects off its surface. On a computer display, the readout looks like a vivid cross-section of the earth, because the various formations are color-coded."

"And you measure the depth of the deposit by the signal's time lag," Admiral Kemper commented. "You're quite right."

"Seems to me the signal would weaken and become distorted the deeper it goes," said Mercier.

"It does," admitted Sandecker. "The beam loses energy as it passes through the different earth layers. But by recording each encounter during the penetration, we've learned to expect and recognize the deviant reflections. We call this density tracking. The computers analyze the effect and transmit the corrected data in digital form."

The President shifted restlessly in his chair. "It all sounds unreal.

"It's real, all right," said Sandecker. "What it boils down to, gentlemen, is that a fleet of ten Doodlebugs could chart and analyze every geological formation under every cubic foot of seafloor in five years."

The room fell silent for several moments. Then Oates murmured reverently. "God, the potential is inconceivable."

CIA Director Brogan leaned over the table. "Any chance the Russians may be onto a similar instrument?"

Sandecker shook his head. "I don't think so. Until a few months ago we didn't have the technology to perfect the high energy beam. Even with a crash program starting from scratch, they'd need a decade to catch up."

"One question that needs answering," said Mercier. "Why the Labrador Sea? Why didn't you test the Doodlebug on our own continental shelf"

"I thought it best to conduct the trials in an isolated area far from normal shipping traffic."

"But why so close to the Canadian shore?"

"The Doodlebug stumbled on indications of oil."

"Oil?"

"Yes, the trail appeared to lead toward the Hudson Strait north of Newfoundland. I gave the order for the Doodlebug to deviate from its original course and follow the scent into Canadian waters. The responsibility for the loss of a very dear friend, his crew and the research vessel is mine and mine alone. No one else is to blame."

An aide entered the room like a wraith and offered coffee. When he reached Sandecker he laid a note at his elbow. It read,

URGENT I SEE YOU.

Giordino

"If I may beg a short interruption," said Sandecker. "I believe one of my staff is outside with updated information on the tragedy." The President gave him an understanding look and nodded in the direction of the doorway. "Of course. Please have him join us."

Giordino was shown into the cabinet room, his face beaming like a lighthouse.

"The Doodlebug and everyone on board came through," he blurted without preamble.

"What happened?" demanded Sandecker.

"The torpedo struck a rock outcropping fifty meters from the submersible. The concussion short-circuited the main terminals. It took Pitt and his men until an hour ago to make emergency repairs and reopen communications."

"No one was injured?" asked Admiral Kemper. "The hull remained tight?"

"Bumps and bruises," Giordino replied like a telegram. "One broken finger. No leaks reported."

"Thank God they're safe," said the President, suddenly all smiles.

Giordino could no longer continue to play it cool. "I haven't mentioned the best part."

Sandecker looked at him quizzically. "Best part?"

"Right after the computers came on line, the output analyzers went crazy. Congratulations, Admiral. The Doodlebug ran onto the granddaddy of stratigraphic traps."

Sandecker tensed. "Are you saying they found oil?"

"Initial indications suggest a field extending nearly ninety-five miles by three-quarters of a mile wide. The yield appears staggering. Projections put the paying sandbar at two thousand barrels per acre foot. The reserve could conceivably bring in eight billion barrels of oil."

No one around the table could say a word. They could only sit there, soaking up the enormous consequences of it all.

Giordino opened an attachd case and handed Sandecker a sheaf of papers. "I didn't have time to tie it with a ribbon, but here are preliminary figures, calculations and projections, including the estimated costs of drilling and production. Dr. King will have a more concise report when the Doodlebug has better surveyed the field."

"Where exactly is this strike?" asked Klein.

Giordino unrolled a chart and spread it on the table in front of the President. He began to outline the Doodlebug's course with a pencil.

"After the near miss by the torpedo, the crew of the Doodlebug took evasive action. They didn't know the sub's attack had been called off. Swinging on a northwest arc from the Labrador Sea, they hugged the seabed through Gray Strait south of the Button Islands and moved into Ungava Bay. It was here," Giordino paused to make a mark on the chart, "they discovered the oil field."

The excitement abruptly faded from the President's eyes. "Then it wasn't near the coast of Newfoundland?"

"No, sir. Newfoundland's provincial border ends -at a point of land at the entrance of Gray Strait. The oil strike was in the waters off Quebec."

The President's expression turned to a look of disappointment. He and Mercier stared at each other in stricken understanding.

"Of all the places in all the northern hemisphere," the President said barely above a whisper, "it had to be Quebec."

Part III

THE NORTH AMERICAN TREATY

APRIL 1989

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Pitt slipped Heidi's notes on the North American Treaty into a briefcase and nodded as the airline stewardess checked to see if his seat belt was clasped and his back rest was in an upright position. He massaged his temples, trying vainly to relieve a headache that had persisted since he changed planes at St. John's, Newfoundland.

Now that the Doodlebug's hectic sea trial were over, the little research vessel had been hoisted aboard its mother ship and transported to Boston for repairs and modifications. Bill Lasky and Sam Quayle left immediately for a week's vacation with their families. Pitt envied them. He was not afforded the luxury of a rest. Sandecker ordered him back to NUMA headquarters for a firsthand report on the expedition.

The plane's tires thumped onto the runway at Washington's National Airport a few minutes before seven. Pitt remained in his seat while the other passengers crowded prematurely into the aisles. One of the last to debark, he took his time, rightly figuring that no matter how slowly he wandered to the baggage claim, he always arrived before his luggage.

He found his car, a red 1966 AC Ford Cobra, in the V.I.P section of the parking lot where it had been left by his secretary earlier in the afternoon. A note was tucked in the steering wheel.

Dear Boss,

Welcome home.

Sorry I couldn't hang around to greet you, but I have a date. Get a good night's sleep.

I told the admiral your plane wouldn't arrive till tomorrow night. Have a day off on me.

Zerri

P.S. Almost forgot what it's like to drive a big old brute. Fun, fun, but oh what awful gas mileage.

Pitt smiled and engaged the starter, listening with pleasure as the 427-cubic-inch engine kicked into life with an obscene roar. While waiting for the temperature gauge to creep into the WARM, he reread the note.

Zerri Pochinsky was the lively type, her pretty face seldom without a contagious smile, hazel eyes mischievous and warm. She was thirty, never married, a mystery to Pitt, full-bodied, with long fawn-colored hair that fell below her shoulders. He'd thought more than once of having an affair with her. The invitation had been demurely signaled often enough. But with regret, he adhered to a law burned in the concrete of an office building somewhere, and learned the hard way during his younger, less disciplined days, that grief always comes to the man who plays games with his staff.

He shook off an erotic image of her inviting him between the sheets and crammed the Cobra into gear. The aging two-seater convertible leaped out of the parking lot and squeaked rubber as it swung onto the highway leading from the airport. He turned from the capital city and headed south, remaining on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. The Cobra's engine loafed along without effort as Pitt passed a stream of mini cars that made up the tail end of the evening traffic rush.

At a small town called Hague he turned off the highway and took a narrow road until he reached Coles Point. When the river came into sight he began studying names on the rural mailboxes beside the road's shoulder. His headlights picked out an elderly woman walking a large Irish setter.

He stopped and leaned toward the passenger window. "I beg your pardon, can you direct me to the Essex place?"

She gave Pitt a wary look and pointed behind the car. "You missed the Essex gate about a half mile back. The one with the iron lions."

"Yes, I recall seeing it."

Before Pitt could begin a U-turn, the woman bent down to the open window. "Won't find him home. Mr. Essex left four, maybe five weeks ago."

"Do you know when he'll return?" Pitt asked.

"Who's to say?" She shrugged. "He often closes down his house and goes to Palm Springs this time of year. Lets my son tend his oyster ponds. Mr. Essex just comes and goes; easy for him, being alone and all. Only way to tell he's gone to the desert is when his mailbox overflows."

Of all people to ask directions, Pitt thought, he had to pick the neighborhood busybody. "Thank you," he said. "You've been most helpful."

The woman's lined face suddenly became a mask of friendliness and her voice turned to molasses. "If you have a message for him, you can give it to me. I'll see that he gets it. I pick up all his mail and newspapers anyway."

Pitt looked at her. "He didn't stop his newspaper?"

She shook her head. "The man is as absentminded as they come. When my boy was working the ponds the other day he said he saw steam coming from the Essex house heating vents. Imagine going away and leaving the heat in the house on. Pure waste, considering the energy shortage."

"You said Mr. Essex lives alone?"

"Lost his wife ten years ago," answered busybody. "His three children are scattered all over. Hardly ever write the poor man."

Pitt thanked her again and rolled up the window before the woman could prattle on. He didn't have to look in the rearview mirror to know she had kept her eye on the car as he turned into the Essex drive.

He rolled through the trees, parked the Cobra in front of the house and switched off the ignition, but left the headlights on. He sat there a few moments, listening to the engine crackle from its heat, hearing a siren on the other side of the river in Maryland. It was a beautiful night. Clear and brisk. Lights sparkled on the river like Christmas ornaments.

The house stood dark and silent.

Pitt climbed out of the sports car and walked around the garage. He lifted the main door on its well-oiled hinges and peered at the two cars facing frontward, the bright work on their grills and bumpers gleaming under the Cobra's lights. One was a compact, a tiny, gas-saving, front-engined Ford. The other was an older Cadillac Brougham, one of the last of the big cars. They were both covered with a light layer of dust.

The interior of the Cadillac was immaculate and the odometer only showed 6400 miles. Both cars looked showroom new; even the underside of the fenders had been kept free of road grime. Pitt had begun to penetrate Essex's world. Judging from the loving care the former ambassador lavished on his automobiles, he was a meticulous and orderly man.

He eased the garage door back down and turned to face the house. The woman's son had been right. Wisps of whitish vapor drifted out of the vents on the roof and faded into the blackened sky. He stepped onto the front porch, found the chime button and pushed it. There was no reply, no movement on the other side of the picture windows whose drapes were tied open. Purely because it seemed the thing to do, he tried the door.

It opened.

Pitt stood there in momentary surprise. An unlocked front door was not in the script; neither was the rank stink of putrefaction that wafted over the threshold and invaded his nostrils.

He stepped inside, leaving the door open behind him. Then he groped for the light switch and flicked it on. The foyer was empty, as was the adjoining dining room. He moved swiftly through the house, beginning with the upstairs bedrooms. The terrible odor seemed everywhere. There was no pinning it down to a particular area. He returned downstairs and checked the living room and kitchen, quickly scanning their interiors before moving on. He almost missed the study, thinking the closed door merely opened to a closet.

John Essex sat in the overstuffed chair, his mouth agape, head twisted over and to the side in agony, a pair of glasses hanging grotesquely from a leathered ear. His once twinkling blue eyes had collapsed and depressed into the skull. Decomposition had been rapid because the thermostat in the room was set at 75F. He had been sitting there, strangely undiscovered for a month, struck dead, so the coroner would state, by a blood clot in the coronary artery.

Pitt could read the signs. During the first two weeks the body had turned green and bloated, popping the buttons from Essex's shirt. Then after the internal fluids had expelled and evaporated, the corpse began to shrivel and dry out, the skin stiffening to the consistency of tanned hide.

Sweat began to seep from Pitt's forehead. The stuffiness of the room, together with the stench, spun him to the verge of sickness. Holding a handkerchief over his nose, he struggled against the urge to vomit, and knelt in front of John Essex's corpse.

A book lay in the lap; one clawlike hand was clamped on the engraved cover. The cold finger of dread etched a path down Pitt's neck. He had seen death close up before, and his reaction was always the same: a feeling of repugnance that slowly gave way to a frightening realization that he too would someday look like the rotting thing in the chair.

Hesitantly, as though he half expected Essex to awake, he pried the book loose. Then he switched on a desk lamp and flipped through the pages. It looked to be some sort of diary or personal journal. He turned to the front heading. The words seemed to rise up from the yellowed paper.

PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS

By

RICHARD C. ESSEX

FOR

APRIL OF 1914

Pitt sat down behind the desk and began reading. After about an hour he stopped and looked at the remains of John Essex, his expression of revulsion replaced with one that was filled with pity. "You poor old fool," he said with sadness in his eyes.

Then he turned off the light and left, leaving the former ambassador to England alone once again in a darkened room.

The air was heavy with the smell of gunpowder as Pitt moved behind a row of muzzle-loading gun enthusiasts at a shooting range outside Fredericksburg, Virginia. He stopped at a baldheaded man who sat hunched over a bench, peering intently down the iron sights of a rifle barrel that was fully forty-six inches in length.

Joe Epstein, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun during working hours and an avid black powder rifleman on weekends, gently squeezed the trigger. The report came like a sharp thump, followed by a small whiff of dark smoke. Epstein checked his hit through a telescope and then began pouring another powder charge down the long barrel.

"The Indians will be all over you before you've reloaded that antique," Pitt said with a grin.

Epstein's eyes brightened in recognition. "I'll have you know I can get off four shots a minute if I hurry." Using pillow ticking as wadding, he rammed a lead ball past the muzzle. "I tried to call you."

"I've been on the go," Pitt said briefly. He nodded at the gun. "What is it?"

"A flintlock. Seventy-five-caliber Brown Bess. Carried by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War." He handed the gun to Pitt. "Care to try it?"

Pitt sat down at the bench and sighted on a target two hundred yards away. "Were you able to dig up anything?"

"The newspaper morgue had bits and pieces on microfilm." Epstein placed a small amount of powder in the flintlock's priming pan. "The trick is not to flinch when the flint ignites the powder in the pan."

Pitt pulled the lock mechanism back. Then he aimed and eased the trigger. The primer flashed almost in his eyes and carried down the touchhole. The charge in the barrel exploded an instant later and his shoulder felt as if it had been rammed by a pile driver.

Epstein stared through the telescope. "Eight inches, two o'clock of dead center. Not bad for a city dude." A voice over a loudspeaker announced a cease-fire and the shooters laid down their pieces and began walking across the range to replace their targets. "Come along and I'll tell you what I found."

Pitt nodded silently and followed Epstein down a slope toward the target area.

"You gave me two names, Richard Essex and Harvey Shields. Essex was undersecretary of state. Shields was his British counterpart, deputy secretary of the Foreign Office. Both career men, the workhorse type. Very little publicity on either man. Carried out their work behind the scenes. Apparently they were rather shadowy figures."

"You're only icing the cake, Joe. There has to be more."

"Not much. As near as I can tell, they never met, at least in their official roles."

"I have a photograph showing them coming out of the White House together."

Epstein shrugged. "My four hundredth mistaken conclusion for the year."

"What became of Shields?"

"He drowned on the Empress of Ireland."

"I know about the Empress. A passenger liner that sank in the St. Lawrence River after colliding with a Norwegian coal collier. Over a thousand lives were lost."

Epstein nodded. "I'd never heard of her until I read Shields' obituary. The sinking was one of the worst maritime disasters of the age."

"Strange. The Empress, the Titanic and the Lusitania all went under within three years of one another."

"Anyway, the body was never found. His family held a memorial service in some unpronounceable little village in Wales. That's all I can tell you about Harvey Shields."

They reached the target and Epstein studied the hits. "A six-inch grouping," he said. "Pretty good for an old smoothbore muzzle-loader."

"A seventy-five-caliber ball makes a nasty hole," said Pitt, eyeing the shredded target. "Think what it would do on flesh."

"I'd rather not." Epstein replaced the target and they began walking back to the shooting line.

"What about Essex?" asked Pitt.

"What can I tell you that you don't already know?"

"How he died, for starters."

"A train wreck," answered Epstein. "Bridge collapsed over the Hudson River. A hundred dead. Essex was one of them."

Pitt thought a moment. "Somewhere, buried in old records in the county where the accident occurred, there must be a report listing the effects found on the body."

"Not likely."

"Why do you say that?"

"Now we've touched on an intriguing parallel between Essex and Shields." He paused and looked at Pitt. "Both men were killed on the same day, May twenty-eighth, nineteen fourteen, and neither of their bodies were ever recovered."

"Great," Pitt sighed. "It never rains…... but then I didn't expect it to be cut-and-dried."

"Investigations into the past never are."

"The coincidence between the deaths of Essex and Shields seems unreal. Could there have been a conspiracy?"

Epstein shook his head. "I doubt it. Stranger things happen. Besides, why sink a ship and murder a thousand souls when Shields could have simply been tossed over the side somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic?"

"You're right, of course."

"You mind telling me what this is all about?"

"I'm not sure where any of this is leading, myself."

"If it's newsworthy, I hope you'll let me in on it."

"Too early to throw in the open. It may be nothing."

"I've known you too long, Dirk. You don't involve yourself with nothing."

"Let's just say I'm a sucker for historical mysteries."

"In that case I've got another one for you."

"Okay, lay it on me."

"The river under the bridge was dragged for over a month. Not a single body of a passenger or crewman ever turned up."

Pitt stopped and stared evenly at Epstein. "I don't buy that. It doesn't figure that a few bodies wouldn't have drifted downriver and beached on the shoreline."

"That's only the half of it," Epstein said with a cagey look. "The train wasn't found either."

"Jesus!"

"Out of professional curiosity I read up on the Manhattan Limited, as it was called. Divers went down for weeks after the tragedy, but turned up zero. The locomotive and all the coaches were written off as having sunk in quicksand. Directors of the New York Quebec Northern Railroad spent a fortune trying to recover a trace of their crack train. They failed, and finally threw in the towel. A short time later, the line was absorbed by the New York Central."

"And that was the end of it."

"Not quite," Epstein said. "It's claimed that the Manhattan Limited still makes its ghostly run."

"You're kidding."

"Scout's honor. Local residents in the Hudson River valley swear to seeing a phantom train as it turns from the shore and heads up the grade of the old bridge before it vanishes. Naturally, the apparition only appears after dark."

"Naturally," Pitt replied sarcastically. "You forgot the full moon and the howling of banshees."

Epstein shrugged and then laughed. "I thought you'd appreciate a touch of the macabre."

"You have copies of all this?"

"Sure. I figured you'd want them. There's five pounds of material on the sinking of the Empress and the investigation following the Hudson River bridge failure. I also scrounged up the names and addresses of a few people who make a hobby out of researching old ship and train disasters. It's all neatly packaged in an envelope out in the car." Epstein motioned toward the parking lot of the shooting range. "I'll get it for you."