Pitt sat there idly stirring the Manhattan with a cherry, scowling at nothing. Somewhere along the line he had lost his grip on things. Events were controlling him. Knowing who tried to kill him provided little satisfaction. Only the Bougainville hierarchy had the motive. He was getting too close. No brilliance required in solving that mystery.
He was angry at himself for playing adolescent computer games with their financial operation while they ran in a tougher league. Pitt felt like a prospector who’d discovered a safe full of currency in the middle of the Antarctic and no place to spend it. His only leverage was that he knew more than they thought he knew.
The enigma that nagged him was Bougainville’s unlikely involvement with the Eagle. He knew of no motive for the sinking and murders. The only tie, and a slim one at that, was the overabundance of Korean bodies.
No matter; that was the FBI’s problem, and he was glad to be rid of it.
The time had come, he decided, to get rolling, and the first step was to marshal his forces. No brilliance required in that decision either.
He rose and walked over to the bar. “Can I borrow your phone, Cabot?”
The bartender, a pixie-faced Irishman, name of Sean Cabot, gave Pitt a doleful glare. “Local or long distance?”
“Long distance, but don’t cry in your cash register. I’ll use a credit card.”
Cabot nodded indifferently and set a telephone on the end of the bar away from the other customers. “Too bad about your car, Dirk. I saw her once. She was a beauty.”
“Thanks. Buy yourself a drink and put it on my tab.”
Cabot filled a glass with ginger ale from the dispenser and held it aloft. “To a Good Samaritan and a bon vivant.”
Pitt didn’t feel like a Good Samaritan and even less like a bon vivant as he punched Out the numbers on the phone. He gave his credit card number to the operator and waited for a voice to answer.
“Casio and Associates Investigatahs.”
“This is Dirk Pitt. Is Sal in?”
“One moment, sah.”
Things were looking up. He’d been accepted into the receptionist’s club.
“Dirk?” came Casio’s voice. “I’ve been calling your office all morning. I think I’ve got something.”
“Yes?”
“A hunt through maritime union files paid dividends. Six of the Korean seamen who signed on the San Marino had prior crew tickets. Mostly with foreign shipping lines. But all six had one thing in common. At one time or another they sailed for Bougainville Maritime. Ever hear of it?”
“It figures,” said Pitt. Then he proceeded to tell Casio what he found during the computer search.
“Damn!” Casio exclaimed incredulously. “Everything fits.”
“The maritime union, what did their records show on the Korean crew after the San Marino hijacking?”
“Nothing, they dropped from sight.”
“If Bougainville history ran true to form, they were murdered.”
Casio fell silent, and Pitt guessed what was running through the investigator’s mind.
“I owe you,” Casio said finally. “You’ve helped me zero in on Arta’s killer. But it’s my show. I’ll take it alone from here.”
“Don’t give me the vengeance is mine martyr routine,” Pitt said abruptly. “Besides, you still don’t know who was directly responsible.”
“Min Koryo Bougainville,” said Casio, spitting out the name. “Who else could it be?”
“The old girl might have given the orders,” said Pitt, “but she didn’t dirty her hands. It’s no secret she’s been in a wheelchair for ten years. No interviews or pictures of her have been published since Nixon was President. For all we know, Min Koryo Bougainville is a senile, bedridden vegetable. Hell, she may even be dead. No way she scattered bodies over the seascape alone.”
“You’re talking a corporate hit squad.”
“Can you think of a more efficient way to eliminate the competition?”
“Now you’re insinuating she’s a member of the Mafia,” grunted Casio.
“The Mafia only kill informers and each other. The evil beauty of Min Koryo’s setup is that by murdering crews in wholesale lots and stealing vessels from other shipping lines, she built her assets with almost no overhead. And to do it she has to have someone organize and orchestrate the crimes. Don’t let your hate blind you to hard-core reality, Sal. You haven’t got the resources to take on Bougainville alone.”
“And you do?”
“Takes two to start an army.”
There was another silence, and Pitt thought the connection might have been broken.
“You still there, Sal?”
“I’m here,” Casio finally said in a thoughtful voice. “What do you want me to do?”
“Fly to New York and pay a visit to Bougainville Maritime.”
“You mean toss their office?”
“I thought the term was ‘breaking and entering.’ “
“A cop and a judge use different dictionaries.”
“Just employ your talents to see what you can find of interest that doesn’t show up in the computers.”
“I’ll bug the place while I’m at it.”
“You’re the expert,” said Pitt. “Our advantage is that you’ll be coming from a direction they won’t suspect. Me, I’ve already been marked.”
“Marked?” asked Casio. “How?”
“They tried to kill me.”
“Christ!” muttered Casio. “How?”
“Car bomb.”
“The bastards!” he rasped. “I’ll leave for New York this afternoon.”
Pitt pushed the telephone across the bar and returned to his booth. He felt better after talking to Casio, and he finished the sandwich. He was contemplating his fourth Manhattan when Giordino walked up to the table.
“A private party?” he asked.
“No,” Pitt said. “A hate-the-world, feel-sorry-for-yourself, down-in-the-dumps party.”
“I’ll join it anyway,” Giordino said, sliding into the booth. “The admiral’s concerned about you.”
“Tell him I’ll pay for the damage to the parking lot.”
“Be serious. The old guy is madder than a stepped-on rattler. Raised hell with the Justice Department all morning, demanding they launch an all-out investigation to find out who was behind the bombing. To him, an attack on you is an attack on NUMA.”
“The FBI nosing around my apartment and office?”
Giordino nodded. “No less than six of them.”
“And reporters?”
“I lost count. What did you expect? The blast that disintegrated your car thrust your name in the limelight. Instant celebrity. First bomb explosion the city’s had in four years. Like it or not, old friend, you’ve become the eye of the storm.”
Pitt felt a mild elation at having scared the Bougainville interests enough for them to attempt his removal. They must somehow have learned he was nipping at their flanks, digging deeper into their secrets with each bite. But why the overreaction?
The fake announcement of his discovery of both the San Marino and the Pilottown no doubt alerted them. Yet it shouldn’t have thrown them into a panic. Min Koryo wasn’t the panicky type — point demonstrated by the fact she did not respond to the doctored story.
How then did they realize he was so close?
Bougainville couldn’t have tied him to the computer penetration and planned his death in such short order. Then the revelation struck him. The notion had been there all the time, but he had pushed it aside, failing to pursue it because it did not fit a pattern. Now it burst like a flare.
Bougainville had linked him to the Eagle.
Pitt was so engrossed in thought he didn’t hear Giordino telling him he had a phone call.
“Your mind must be a million miles away,” said Giordino, pointing toward Cabot the bartender, who was holding up the bar phone.
Pitt walked over to the bar and spoke in the mouthpiece. “Hello.”
&nb
sp; Sally Lindemann’s voice bubbled excitedly over the wire. “Oh, thank heavens I’ve finally tracked you down. I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”
“What’s wrong?” Pitt demanded. “Is Loren all right?”
“I think so, and then maybe not,” said Sally, becoming flustered. “I just don’t know.”
“Take your time and spell it out,” Pitt said gently.
“Congresswoman Smith called me in the middle of the night from the Leonid Andreyev and told me to find the whereabouts of Speaker of the House Alan Moran. She never gave me a reason. When I asked her what to say when I contacted him, she said to tell him it was a mistake. Make sense to you?”
“Did you find Moran?”
“Not exactly. He and Senator Marcus Larimer were supposed to be fishing together at a place called Goose Lake. I went there but nobody else knew anything about them.”
“What else did Loren say?”
“Her last words to me were ‘Call Dirk and tell him I need—’ Then we were cut off. I tried several times to reach her again, but there was no answer.”
“Did you tell the ship’s operator it was an emergency?”
“Of course. They claimed my message was passed on to her stateroom, but she made no attempt to reply. This is the damnedest thing. Not like Congresswoman Smith at all. Sound crazy?”
Pitt was silent, thinking it out. “Yes,” he said at last, “just crazy enough to make sense. Do you have the Leonid Andreyev’s schedule?”
“One moment.” Sally went off the line for nearly a minute. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
“When does it make the next port?”
“Let’s see, it arrives in San Salvador in the Bahamas at ten A.M. tomorrow and departs the same evening at eight P.M. for Kingston, Jamaica.”
“Thank you, Sally.”
“What’s all this about?” Sally asked. “I wish you’d tell me.”
“Keep trying to reach Loren. Contact the ship every two hours.”
“You’ll call if you find out anything,” Sally said suspiciously.
“I’ll call,” Pitt promised.
He returned to the table and sat down.
“What was that all about?” Giordino inquired.
“My travel agent,” Pitt answered, pretending to be nonchalant. “I’ve booked us for a cruise in the Caribbean.”
48
Curtis Mayo sat at a desk amid the studio mock-up of a busy newsroom and peered at the television monitor slightly to his right and below camera number two. He was ten minutes into the evening news and waited for his cue after a commercial advertising a bathroom disinfectant. The thirty-second spot wound down on a New York fashion model, who probably never cleaned a toilet bowl in her life, smiling demurely with the product caressing her cheek.
The floor director moved into Mayo’s eye range, counted down the last three seconds and waved. The red light on the camera blinked on and Mayo stared into the lens, beginning the B segment of his news program.
“At the President’s farm in New Mexico there have been rumors that the nation’s chief executive and the Vice President are using look-alike stand-ins.”
As Mayo continued his story line the engineer in the control booth cut to the tape of the President driving the tractor.
“These scenes of the President cutting alfalfa on his farm, when viewed close up, suggest to some that it is not him. Certain famous mannerisms seem exaggerated, different rings are seen on the fingers, the wrist-watch is not the one he usually wears, and there appears to be a casual habit of scratching the chin that has not been noted before.
“John Sutton, the actor who bears a striking resemblance and who often imitates the President on TV shows and commercials, could not be found by reporters in Hollywood for comment. Which raises the question Why would our nation’s leaders require doubles? Is it a secret security procedure, or a deception for darker motives? Could it be the pressures of the job are such that they have to be in two places at the same time? We can only speculate.”
Mayo let the story dangle on a thread of suspicion. The engineer in the booth switched back to the studio camera, and Mayo went into the next story.
“In Miami today, police claimed a breakthrough in a string of drug-related murders… ”
After the program, Mayo smiled in grim delight when informed of the hundreds of calls flooding the network news offices asking for more information on the President’s double story. The same reaction, if not far heavier, had to be pouring into White House phone lines. In a spiteful sort of glee, he wondered how the presidential press secretary was taking it.
In New Mexico, Sonny Thompson stared blankly at the TV set long after Mayo left the air. He sat collapsed in his chair, his flesh the consistency of blubber. He envisioned his carefully nurtured world slamming to a rapid end. His peers in the news media were about to crucify him on a cross of sensationalism. When he was proven an accomplice to a conspiracy to deceive the American public, no newspaper or TV network would ever hire him after his looming White House departure.
John Sutton stood in back of him with a drink in one hand. “The vultures are circling,” he said.
“In giant flocks,” Thompson muttered.
“What happens now?”
“That’s for others to decide.”
“I’m not going to jail like Liddy, Colson and those other guys,” Sutton said nastily.
“Nobody’s going to jail,” Thompson said wearily. “This isn’t Watergate. The Justice Department is working with us.”
“No way I’m going to take a fall for a bunch of politicians.” Sutton’s eyes began to take on a greedy gleam. “A guy could make thousands, maybe a few million out of this.”
Thompson looked at him. “How?”
“Interviews, articles, and there’s book rights royalties — the possibilities for making a bundle are endless.”
“And you think you’re going to walk out of here and tell all.”
“Why not?” said Sutton. “Who’s going to stop me?”
It was Thompson’s turn to smile. “You haven’t been told the reasons behind your employment. You have no idea how vital your little act is to our country’s interests.”
“So who cares?” Sutton said indifferently.
“You may not believe it, Mr. Sutton, but there are many decent people in our government who are genuinely concerned about its welfare. They will never allow you to endanger it by speaking your piece for profit.”
“How can those egomaniacs who run the fun house in Washington hurt me? Slap my hand? Draft me into a volunteer army at age sixty-two? Turn me over to the Internal Revenue Service? No sweat on that score. I get audited every year anyway.”
“Nothing so mundane,” said Thompson. “You will simply be taken out.”
“What do you mean, taken out?” demanded Sutton.
“Perhaps I should have said ‘disappear,’ “ Thompson replied, delighting in the realization that grew in Sutton’s eyes. “It goes without saying your body will never be recovered.”
49
Fawcett felt no enthusiasm for the day ahead. As he scraped the beard from his chin, he occasionally glanced at the stack of newspapers spilling off the bathroom sink. Mayo’s story made front page news across every morning edition in the nation. Suddenly the press began to ask why the President hadn’t been reachable for ten days. Half the editorial columns demanded he step forward and make a statement. The other half asked the question “Where is the real President?”
Wiping the remaining lather away with a towel and slapping his face with a mild after-shave lotion, Fawcett decided his best approach was to play the Washington enigma game and remain silent. He would cover his personal territory, slide artfully into the background and gracefully permit Secretary Oates to carry the brunt of the media onslaught.
Time had slipped from days to a few hours. Soon only minutes would be left. The inner sanctum could stall no longer.
Fawcett couldn’t begin to predict the
complications that would arise from the announcement of the abduction. No crime against the government had ever approached this magnitude.
His only conviction was that the great perpetuating bureaucracy would continue to somehow function. The power elite were the ones who were swept in and swept out by the whim of the voters. But the institution endured.
He was determined to do everything within his shrinking realm of influence to make the next President’s transition as painless as possible. With luck, he might even save his job.
He put on a dark suit, left the house and drove to his office, dreading every mile. Oscar Lucas and Alan Mercier were waiting for him as he entered the West Wing.
“Looks grim” was all Lucas said.
“Someone has to make a statement,” said Mercier, whose face looked like it belonged in a coffin.
“Anybody I know draw the short straw?” asked Fawcett.
“Doug Oates thought you’d be the best man to hold a press conference and announce the kidnapping.”
“What about the rest of the Cabinet?” Fawcett asked incredulously.
“They concurred.”
“Screw Oates!” Fawcett said coarsely. “The whole idea is stupid. He’s only trying to save his own ass. I don’t have the credentials to drop the bombshell. As far as the grass-roots voters are concerned, I’m a nonentity. Not one out of a thousand can recall my name or give my position in the administration. You know exactly what would happen. The public would immediately sense their nation’s leaders are floundering in a sinking boat, shrinking behind closed doors to save their political hides, and when it was over, any respect the United States ever had would be wiped out. No, I’m sorry. Oates is the logical choice to make the announcement.”
“But you see,” Mercier said patiently, “if Oates is forced to take the heat and plead ignorance to a lot of embarrassing questions, it might seem he had something to do with the abduction. As next in line for the Presidency, he has the most to gain. Every muckraker in the country will scream ‘conspiracy.’ Remember the public backlash when former Secretary of State Alexander Haig said he had everything under control right after Reagan was shot by Hinckley? Warranted or not, his image as a power seeker mushroomed. The public didn’t like the idea of him running the country. His base of influence eroded until he finally resigned.”
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