Night Probe!

by Clive Cussler

  To the young men in the room she was a welcome distraction from their studies. She knew instinctively that she was being stripped to her skin in their imaginations. But since she'd passed thirty, she'd become indifferent, though not too indifferent.

  "Looks like you're on another allnighter Commander."

  Heidi looked up into the ever-smiling face of Mildred Gardner, the matronly head archivist of the university. "Allnighter?"

  "Late study. In my day we called it burning the midnight oil."

  Heidi leaned back in her chair. "I've got to steal whatever time I can to work on my dissertation."

  Mildred blew the bangs of her nineteen-fortyish pageboy hairstyle out of her eyes and sat down. "An attractive girl like you can't spend all your nights studying. You should find yourself a good man and live it up once in a while."

  "First I'll get my doctorate in history, then I'll live it up."

  "You can't get passionate with a piece of paper that says you're a Ph.D."

  "Maybe the sound of Dr. Milligan turns me on," Heidi laughed. "If I'm to advance my career in the navy, I'll need the credentials."

  "Sounds to me like you like to compete with the opposite sex."

  "Sex has nothing to do with it. My first love is the navy. What's wrong with that?"

  Mildred made a gesture of surrender. "No profit in arguing with a stubborn female, and hardheaded sailor to boot." She rose and looked down at the documents scattered on the table. "Anything I can pull from the shelves for you?"

  "I'm researching Woodrow Wilson papers that deal with the navy during his administration."

  "How horribly dull. Why that subject?"

  "I guess you might say I'm intrigued by covering an untapped sideline of history."

  "You mean subject matter no male has had the foresight to research before."

  "You said it, not me."

  "I don't envy the guy who marries you," said Mildred. "He'd come home from work and have to arm-wrestle. The loser cooking dinner and doing the dishes."

  "I was married. Six years. To a colonel in the Marine Corps. I still carry the scars."

  "Physical or mental?"

  "Both."

  Mildred dropped the subject and picked up the fiberboard case that housed the documents, and checked the file number. "You're in the ball park. This file contains the bulk of Wilson's naval correspondence."

  "I've pretty much exhausted them," said Heidi. "Can you think of any avenue I might have missed?"

  Mildred stared into space a moment. "A slim possibility. Give me ten minutes."

  She returned in five, carrying another document case. "Unpublished material that hasn't been Cataloged yet," she said with a pontifical grin. "Might be worth a look."

  Heidi scrutinized the yellowed letters. Most were in the President's own hand. Advice to his three daughters, explanations of his stand against Tammany Hall to William Jennings Bryan during the Democratic convention of 1912, personal messages to Ellen Louise Axson, his first wife, and Edith Boning Gait, his second.

  Fifteen minutes before closing time Heidi unfolded a letter addressed to Herbert Henry Asquith, the Prime Minister of Britain. The paper appeared creased in irregular lines as though it had once been wadded up. The date was June 4, 1914, but there was no mark of acknowledgment, which suggested that the letter had never been sent. She began to read the neatly styled script.

  Dear Herbert,

  With the formally signed copies of our treaty seemingly lost and the heated criticism you are receiving from members of your cabinet, perhaps our bargain was never meant to be. And since formal transfer did not transpire, I have given my secretary instructions to destroy all mention of our pact. This uncustomary step is, I feel, somewhat reluctantly, warranted as my countrymen are a possessive lot and would never idly stand by knowing with certainty that

  A crease ran through the next line, obliterating the writing. The letter continued with a new paragraph.

  At the request of Sir Edward, and with the concurrence of Bryan, I have recorded the funds deposited to your government from our treasury as a loan.

  Your friend,

  WOODROW WILSON

  Heidi was about to set the letter aside because there was no reference to naval involvement when curiosity pulled her eyes back to the words "destroy all mention of our pact."

  She hung on them for nearly a minute. After two years of in-depth study, she felt she had come to know Woodrow Wilson almost as well as a favorite uncle, and she'd discovered nothing in the former President's makeup to suggest a Watergate mentality during his years in public office.

  The ten-minute warning sounded for the closing of the archives. She quickly transcribed the letter on a yellow legal pad. Then she checked in both file cases at the front desk. "Run on to anything useful?"

  asked Mildred. "A trail of smoke I didn't expect," replied Heidi vaguely. "Where do you go from here?"

  "Washington . . . the National Archives."

  "Good luck. I hope you make a hit."

  "Hit?"

  "Discover a previously overlooked treasure of information." Heidi shrugged. "You never know what might turn up."

  She had not planned to pursue the meaning of Wilson's odd letter.

  But now that she had the door open a crack, she decided it was worth a further peek.

  The Senate historian leaned back in his chair. "I'm sorry, commander, but we don't have room up here in the Capitol attic to store congressional documents."

  "I understand," said Heidi. "You specialize in old photographs."

  Jack Murphy nodded. "Yes, we maintain quite an extensive collection of government-related pictures going back as far as the eighteen forties." He idly fiddled with a paperweight on the desk. "Have you tried the National Archives? They have a massive storehouse of material."

  "A wasted effort," Heidi shrugged. "I found nothing that related to my search."

  "How can I help?"

  "I'm interested in a treaty between England and America. I thought perhaps a photo might have been taken during the signing."

  "We carry a wealth of those. The president has yet to be born who didn't call in an artist or photographer to record a treaty signature.

  "All I can tell you is that it took place during the first six months of nineteen fourteen."

  "I can't recall such an event off the top of my head," said Murphy, with a thoughtful look. "I'll be glad to make a search for you; might take a day or two. I have several research projects ahead of yours."

  "I understand. Thank you."

  Murphy hesitated, then stared at her, a quizzical look in his eyes. "It strikes me odd that no mention of an Anglo-American treaty can be found in official archives. Do you have a reference to it?"

  "I found a letter written by President Wilson to Prime Minister Asquith in which he alludes to a formally signed treaty."

  Murphy rose from his desk and showed Heidi to the door. "My staff will give it a try, Commander Milligan. If there is a photograph, we'll find it."

  Heidi sat in her room at the Jefferson Hotel, peering into a cosmetic case mirror at a crow's-foot that edged a widened eye. All things considered, she had accepted the merciless encroachment of age, and was keeping her youthful-looking face and a body that had yet to see an ounce of fat.

  In the last three years she had weathered a hysterectomy, a divorce and a tender May-December affair with an admiral twice her age who recently died from a heart attack. Yet she still looked as vibrant and alive as when she graduated from Annapolis, fourteenth in her class.

  She leaned closer to the mirror and studied a pair of Castilian brown eyes. The right one had a small imperfection at the bottom of the iris, a small pie-shaped splash of gray. Heterochromia ifidis was the highfalutin term an ophthalmologist gave her when she was ten years old, and schoolmates had taunted her about possessing an evil eye. From then on she reveled in being different, especially later when boys found it appealing.

  Since the death of Admiral Walter Bass sh
e had felt no urge to search out and emotionally involve herself with another man. But before she realized what she was doing, the blue uniform was hanging in the closet and she was standing in the elevator in a bias-cut, coppery-colored slip dress of silk, piped in saffron that plunged devilishly low in back and front and was dashed with a silk flower at a V far below her breasts. Besides a matching purse, her only other accessory was a long feather and jeweled earring that dangled to her shoulder. For warmth against Washington's bleak winter air, she buried herself in a notch-collared greatcoat of dark brown-and-black synthetic fox.

  The doorman sighed at the exhilarating view and opened the door to a cab.

  "Where to?" asked the driver without turning.

  The simple question took her by surprise. She had made up her mind to go out on the town; she hadn't planned where. She paused, and then opportunely her stomach growled.

  "A restaurant," she blurted. "Can you recommend a nice restaurant?"

  "What do you feel like eatin', lady?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Steak, Chinese, seafood? You name it."

  "Seafood."

  "You got it," said the driver, punching the button on the digital meter. "I know just the place. Overlooks the river. Very romantic."

  "Just what I need." Heidi laughed. "It sounds perfect."

  Already the evening was a bust. Sitting by candlelight and sipping wine while watching the Capitol's lights sparkling on the Potomac River with no one to talk to only served to deepen her solitude. A woman dining by herself still seemed an odd sight to some people. She caught the discreet stares of the other diners and guessed their thoughts to pass the time. A date who's been stood up? A wife on the make? A hooker taking a dinner break? The latter was her favorite.

  A man came in and was seated two tables behind her. The restaurant was dimly lit and all she could tell about him as he passed was that he was tall. She was tempted to turn around and give him an appraising gaze, but could not overcome her inbred standards of modesty.

  Suddenly she sensed a presence standing at her side, and her nostrils picked up the vague scent of a mari's shaving cologne.

  "I beg your pardon, gorgeous creature," a voice whispered in her ear, "but could you see it in your heart to buy a poor, destitute wino a glass of muscatel?"

  Startled, she cringed and looked up, her eyes wide.

  The intruder's face was shadowed and indistinct. Then he came around and sat down opposite her. His hair was thick and black and the candlelight reflected a pair of warm sea-green eyes. His face was weathered and darkened by the sun. He stared at her as if anticipating a greeting, his features cool and expressionless, and then he smiled and the whole room seemed to brighten.

  "Why, Heidi Milligan, can it be you don't remember me?" She trembled as a tide of recognition swept over her. "Pitt! Oh my God, Dirk Pitt!"

  Impulsively she placed her hands on his temples and pulled him toward her until their lips touched. Pitt's eyes took on a bemused look, and when Heidi released him, he sat back and shook his head.

  "Amazing how a man can misjudge a woman. All I expected was a handshake."

  A blush tinted Heidi's cheeks. "You caught me in a weak moment. I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself, and when I saw a friend . . . well, I guess I got carried away."

  He held her hands in a gentle grip and the smile faded. "I was saddened to hear of Admiral Bass's passing. He was a good man."

  Her eyes grew dark. "The end was painless. After he went into a coma he just slipped away."

  "God only knows how the Vixen affair might have turned out if he hadn't volunteered his services."

  "Remember when we met?"

  "I came to interview the admiral at his inn near Lexington, Virginia, where he retired."

  "And I thought you were some government official who wanted to badger him. I treated you dreadfully."

  Pitt paused and stared at her. "You two were very close."

  She nodded. "We lived together for nearly eighteen months. He came from the old school, but he wouldn't consider marriage. Said it was stupid for a young woman to tie herself to a man with one foot in the grave."

  Pitt could see the tears. beginning to form and he quickly changed the subject. "If you don't mind my saying, you're the image of a high-school girl on her first prom date."

  "The perfect compliment at the perfect moment." Heidi straightened and peered around the tables. "I don't mean to take you away from anything. You're probably meeting someone."

  "No, I'm stag." He smiled with his eyes. "I'm between projects and decided to relax with a quiet supper."

  "I'm glad we met," she said shyly.

  "You have but to give the command, and I'm your slave till dawn."

  She looked at him and the sights and sounds of the dining room faded into the background.

  She stared demurely down at the table setting. "I'd like that very much."

  When they entered Heidi's hotel room, Pitt tenderly picked her up and carried her to the bed.

  "Do not move," he said. "I'll do everything."

  He began to undress her, very slowly. She couldn't remember ever having a man undress her so completely, from her earrings to her shoes. He made as little contact with his fingers as possible and the anticipation mushroomed inside her to an exquisite agony.

  Pitt was not to be hurried. She wondered how many other women he had sweetly tortured like this. The passion began to reflect in Pitt's depthless eyes and it excited her to an even higher level.

  Suddenly his lips came down onto hers. They were warm and moist. She responded as his arms tightened around her hips and pulled her to him. She seemed to dissolve and a moan escaped her throat.

  Just when the blood felt as though it would burst inside and her muscles pulsated uncontrollably, she opened her mouth to scream. It was then Pitt penetrated her and she came and came in a sweeping rage of pleasure that never seemed to end.

  The most luxurious hour of sleep comes not in the beginning or middle but just prior to awakening. It is then that one dream falls upon another in a kaleidoscope of vivid fantasies. To be interrupted by the ringing of a telephone and thrust back to conscious reality is as tormenting as the scraping of fingernails across a blackboard.

  Heidi's agony was compounded by an accompanying knock on her hotel room door. Her mind fogged from sleep, she lifted the receiver and mumbled, "Hold on a minute, please." Then she slid from bed and stumbled halfway across the room before realizing she was naked.

  Grabbing a terrycloth robe from her suitcase, she threw it over her shoulders and cracked the door. A bellhop slipped around the barrier with the ease of an eel and set a large vase of white roses on a table.

  Still in a haze, Heidi tipped him and returned to the phone. "Sorry for the delay. This is Commander Milligan."

  "Ah, Commander," came the voice of Jack Murphy, the Senate historian, "did I wake you?"

  "I had to get up anyway," she said, disguising the urge-to-kill tone in her voice.

  "I thought you'd like to know your request triggered a recollection in my mind. So I ran a search last night after closing time and came up with something most interesting."

  Heidi rubbed the cobwebs from her eyes. "I'm listening."

  "There were no photographs on file of a treaty signing during nineteen fourteen," said Murphy. "I did find, however, an old shot of William Jennings Bryan, who was Wilson's secretary of state at the time; his undersecretary, Richard Essex; and Harvey Shields, identified in a caption only as a representative of His Majesty's government, entering a car."

  "I fail to see a connection," said Heidi.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to mislead you. The photograph itself tells us very little. But on the back there is a small penciled notation in the lower left corner that is barely legible. It gives the date, May twentieth, nineteen fourteen, and says: "Bryan leaving White House with North American Treaty." Heidi clutched the phone. "So it really existed."

  "My guess is it was only a prop
osed treaty." Murphy's pride at successfully meeting a challenge was obvious in his tone. "If you would like a copy of the photograph we must charge a small fee."

  "Yes . . . yes, please. Could you also make an enlargement of the writing on the back?"

  "No problem. You can pick up the prints anytime after three o'clock."

  "That will be terrific. Thank you."

  Heidi hung up the phone and lay back on the bed, happily basking in the feeling of accomplishment.

  There was a connection after all. Then she remembered the flowers. A note was attached to one of the white roses.

  You look ravishing out of uniform. Forgive me for not being near when you awoke.

  Dirk

  Heidi pressed the rose against her cheek and her lips parted in a lazy smile. The hours spent with Pitt returned as though observed through a pane of frosted glass, the sights and sounds fusing together in a dreamy sort of mist. He was like a phantom who had come and gone in a fantasy. Only the touch of their bodies lingered with clarity, that and a glowing soreness from within.

  With reluctance she forced the reverie from her mind and picked up a Washington phone directory from the nightstand. Holding a long fingernail beneath a tiny printed number, she dialed and waited. On the third ring a voice answered.