by Night Probe!
There were no words left in Hoker. He looked terribly old and lost. He went back to work on the video console, his movements slow and mechanical. Pitt suddenly felt too exhausted to carry on. It was a waste, the entire project a pitiful waste. They had accomplished nothing but the deaths of ten good men.
He did not hear the faint voice in the earphones at first. Finally it began to penetrate his despondency. Whoever was trying to reach him sounded weak and far away. "Pitt here. What is it?" The reply was garbled and unclear.
"You'll have to speak up, I can't make you out. Try increasing your volume."
"Is that any better?" a voice boomed through the receivers.
"Yes, I can hear you now." Pitt's own voice echoed back. "Who is this?"
"Collins." The next few words were distorted: "been attempting to make phone contact since I came to. Don't know what happened. Suddenly all hell broke loose. Only now managed to splice my communications link."
The name Collins was not familiar to Pitt. In his few short days aboard the Ocean Venturer, he had been too busy to memorize and associate a hundred names with their respective faces. "What's your problem?" Pitt asked impatiently, his mind returning to other matters.
There was a long pause. "I guess you might say I'm trapped," the reply came back heavy in sarcasm. "And if it isn't inconvenient I would appreciate an assist in getting the hell out of here."
Pitt tapped Hoker on the shoulder. "Who is Collins and what's his capacity?"
"Don't you know?"
"If I did, I wouldn't be asking," Pitt growled. "He claims he's trapped and needs help."
Hoker looked at him incredulously. "Collins is one of the JIM suit operators! He was down during the explosion."
"Christ," Pitt muttered. "He must think I'm the prize idiot of the decade." He fairly yelled into the microphone. "Collins, give me your condition and precise location."
"The suit is intact. A few dents and scratches, nothing more. The life-support system indicates another twenty hours, providing I don't practice aerobic dancing." Pitt grinned quietly to himself at Collins' humorous spirits, felt regret that he didn't know the man. "Where am I? Damned if I know exactly. The suit is up to its crotch in mud, and there's trash hanging all over it. I can barely articulate the arms."
Pitt's gaze traveled to Hoker, who was staring back with a curious blank expression. "Any possibility he can jettison the lifting line, release his weights and make a free ascent like his partner?" Hoker asked.
Pitt shook his head. "He's half buried in silt and entangled in the wreckage."
"You did say he was in silt?" Pitt nodded.
"Then he must have fallen through onto the second-class deck."
The possibility had also struck Pitt, but he was afraid to predict, to even express a hope. "I'll ask him," he said quietly. "Collins?"
"I haven't gone anywhere."
"Can you determine if you dropped into the target area?"
"Beats me," answered Collins. "I blacked out right after the big bang. Things were pretty well stirred up. Visibility is only now beginning to clear a little."
"Look around. Describe what you see."
Pitt waited impatiently for a reply, knuckles rapping unconsciously against a computer. His eyes roamed to the Huron, which was perched over the Sappho I, watched the crane on the afterdeck swing over the side. Suddenly his ear receivers crackled and he stiffened.
"Pitt?"
"I'm listening."
The self- assurance was gone and Collins sounded strangely subdued. "I think I'm where the bow of the Storstad struck the Empress. The damage around me is old…... much corrosion and heavy growth-" He broke off, without completing the description. After a silence, he came back; his voice had a chill in it. "There are bones. I count two, no three skeletons. They're embedded in the rubble. God, I feel like I'm standing in a catacomb."
Pitt tried to visualize what Collins was seeing, how he would have felt if they could exchange places. "Go on. What else is there?"
"The remains of the poor devils, whoever they were, are above me. I can almost reach out and pat their heads."
"You mean skulls."
"Yeah. One is smaller, maybe a child. The others appear to be adults. I may want to take one home with me."
From the gruesome direction the conversation was turning, Pitt could not help wondering if Collins was losing his grip on reality. "What for? So you can play Hamlet?"
"Hell, no," Collins replied indignantly. "The jaws must have four thousand bucks' worth of gold in the teeth."
A bell rang in the back of Pitt's mind, and he reached back to recall an image on a photograph. "Collins, listen to me carefully. On the upper jaw. Are two large rabbit teeth in the upper center surrounded by gold caps?"
Collins did not answer immediately and the few moments delay was maddening to Pitt. He could not know that Collins was too stunned to reply.
"Uncanny…... positively uncanny," Collins murmured over the phone link in total bafflement. "You described the guy's bicuspids perfectly."
The manifestation struck with such abruptness, such incredibility, that Pitt was for the moment incapable of speech, capable only of the heart-stopping realization that they had at last discovered the burial vault of Harvey Shields.
Sarveux waited until the door had closed behind his secretary before he spoke. "I have read your report, and I find it deeply disturbing."
Shaw did not answer, for no answer was required. He looked across the desk at the Prime Minister. The man looked older in person than he appeared on camera. What struck Shaw were the sadness in the eyes and the gloves on the hands. Though he was aware of Sarveux's injuries, it still looked odd to see a man working at a desk wearing gloves.
"You've made very grave accusations against Mr. Villon, none of which are backed up with hard evidence."
"I'm not the devil's advocate, Prime Minister. I've only presented the facts as I know them."
"Why do you come to me with this?"
"I thought you should be aware of it. General Simms shared my view."
"I see." Sarveux was silent for a moment. "Are you certain this Foss Gly worked for Villon "There is no doubt of it."
Sarveux sank back in his chair. "You would have done me a greater service by forgetting this thing."
A look of surprise came over Shaw's face. "Sir?"
"Henri Villon is no longer a member of my cabinet. And this Gly fellow, you say, is dead."
Shaw did not immediately answer, and Sarveux took advantage of his hesitation to continue. "Your hired assassin theory is vague and obscure to say the least. Based on nothing but conversation. There isn't enough circumstantial evidence here to prompt even a preliminary investigation."
Shaw gave Sarveux his best withering stare. "General Simms is of a mind that with a little more digging you may find that the infamous Mr. Gly was the mastermind behind your air crash and the recent demise of Premier Guerrier."
"Yes, the man was no doubt capable of-" Sarveux stopped in mid-sentence. His eyes widened and his face tensed. He leaned across the desk. "What was that? What did you imply?" His voice was stunned, demanding.
"Henri Villon had the motive for wanting you and Guerrier dead, and he…... I've proved to my satisfaction anyway…... employed a known killer. I admit that two and two don't necessarily add up to four, but in this case even three may be an acceptable answer."
"What you and General Simms are suggesting is repugnant," Sarveux said in hoarse indignation. "Canadian ministers do not go around murdering one another to attain higher office."
Shaw saw that any further argument was fruitless. "I'm sorry I can't offer you more precise information."
"So am I," said Sarveux, his manner quickly becoming cool again. "I'm not convinced a blunder by you or one of your people didn't cause that nasty mess with the Americans on the St. Lawrence. And now you're trying to cover up by throwing the blame on someone else." Shaw felt his anger rising. "I assure you, Prime Minister, that is not th
e case."
Sarveux stared at Shaw steadily. "Nations are not run on probabilities, Mr. Shaw. Please thank General Simms and tell him to consider the matter dropped. And while you're at it, please inform him I see no reason to pursue the North American Treaty business." Shaw sat astounded. "But, sir, if the Americans find a treaty copy, they can-"
"They won't," Sarveux cut him short. "Good day, Mr. Shaw."
His hands balled into fists, Shaw got up and wordlessly left the room.
As soon as the door latch clicked, Sarveux picked up the phone and dialed a number on his private line.
Forty minutes later, Commissionaire Harold Finn of the Mounties entered the room.
He was an unimpressive little man in rumpled clothes, the sort who is lost in a crowd or melts in with the furniture during a party. His charcoal hair was parted down the middle and contrasted with bushy white eyebrows.
"I'm sorry to have gotten you over here on such short notice," Sarveux apologized.
"No problem," Finn said stonily. He took a chair and began fishing through a briefcase.
Sarveux didn't waste time. "What are your findings?"
Finn unhinged a pair of reading glasses and held them in front of his eyes as he scanned a pair of opened folders. "I have the file on the autopsy and a report on Jean Boucher."
"The man who discovered Jules Guerrier's body?"
"Yes, Guerrier's bodyguard/ chauffeur He found the remains when he went to wake the premier in the morning. The coroner's report states that Guerrier died sometime between nine and ten the previous evening. The autopsy was unable to turn up a specific cause of death."
"Surely they must have some idea?"
"A variety of factors," said Finn, "none conclusive. Jules Guerrier was one step away from the grave. According to the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy, he was suffering from emphysema, gallstones, arteriosclerosis-the latter is what probably killed him-rheumatoid arthritis and cancer of the prostate gland." Finn looked up and smiled thinly. "It was a miracle the man lived as long as he did."
"So Jules died a natural death."
"He had a good excuse for it."
"What about this Jean Boucher?"
Finn read from the report. "Comes from a solid family. Good education. No record of arrests and nothing to indicate an interest in radical causes. Wife and two children, both girls who are married to honest wage earners. Boucher was hired by Guerrier in May of sixty-two. As far as we can determine, he was completely loyal to the premier."
"Do you have any reason to suspect foul play?"
"Frankly, no," replied Finn. "But the death of a well-known personage demands strict attention to details so that no disputes arise at a later date. This case should have been routine. Unfortunately, Boucher threw a wrench into the gears of the investigation."
"In what way?"
"He swears Henri Villon visited Guerrier the night in question and was the last man to see the premier alive."
Sarveux looked bewildered. "That's impossible. Villon made the opening dedication speech at the performing arts center two hundred miles away. He was seen by thousands of people."
"Millions, actually," said Finn. "The event was on national television."
"Could Boucher have murdered Jules and then made up this fairy tale as an alibi?"
"I don't think so. We don't have a shred of evidence that Guerrier was assassinated. The autopsy is clean. Boucher needs no alibi."
"But his claim that Villon was present in Quebec; what purpose does it serve?"
"None that we can figure, yet his conviction is unshakable."
"The man was obviously hallucinating," said Sarveux.
Finn leaned forward in his chair. "He isn't insane, Mr. Sarveux. That's the catch. Boucher demanded to take truth serum and be placed under hypnosis and given a lie detector test." Finn took a deep breath. "We called his bluff, but the results proved conclusively he wasn't bluffing. Boucher was telling the truth."
Sarveux stared at him speechlessly.
"I wish I could say the Mounties have all the answers, but we don't," Finn admitted. "The house was swept by our laboratory people. With one exception, the only fingerprints they turned up belonged to Guerrier, Boucher, the maid and the cook. Regrettably all prints found on the bedroom door knob were smudged."
"You mentioned an exception."
"We found a strange impression from a right index finger on the front-door chime. We have yet to identify it."
"Doesn't prove a thing," said Sarveux. "It could have been made by a tradesman, a postman or even one of your people during the investigation."
Finn smiled. "If that were the case, the computer in our ID section would have a make in two seconds or less. No, this is someone we don't have on file." He paused to study a page in the folder. "Interestingly enough, we have an approximate time when persons unknown rang the chimes. Guerrier's secretary, a Mrs. Molly Saban, brought him a bowl of chicken soup to fight off the flu. She arrived around eight-thirly, punched the chime button, delivered the soup to Boucher and left. She was wearing gloves, so the next bare finger to come along left a clear impression."
"Chicken soup," said Sarveux, shaking his head. nature's cure-all." The eter'Thanks to Mrs. Saban, we know that someone approached Guerrier's home sometime after eight-thirty of the night he died."
"If we accept Boucher's word, how could Villon be in two places at once?"
"I haven't a clue."
"The investigation, is it formally closed?"
Finn nodded. "There was little to be gained by continuing."
"I want you to reopen it."
Finn's only reaction was a marginal lift of one eyebrow. "Sir?"
"There may be something to Boucher's story after all," said Sarveux. He passed Shaw's report across the desk to Finn. "I've just received this from an agent in the British secret service. It suggests a connection between Henri Villon and a known killer. See if there is any substance to the possibility. Also, I'd like your people to conduct another autopsy."
Finn's other eyebrow came up. "Obtaining an exhumation order could prove a messy business."
"There will be no exhumation order," said Sarveux curtly.
"I understand, Prime Minister," said Finn, catching Sarveux's drift. "The affair will be handled under tight security. I'll personally see to the details."
Finn inserted the reports in his briefcase and stood up to leave.
"There is one more thing," said Sarveux.
"Yes, Prime Minister."
"How long have you known of my wife's affair with Villon?"
Finn's normally inscrutable features took on a pained look. "Well, sir…... ah, it came to my attention nearly two years ago."
"And you did not come to me?"
"Unless we feel a treasonable act has been committed, it is Mountie policy not to become involved with the domestic privacy of Canadian citizens." Then he added, "That, of course, includes the Prime Minister and the members of Parliament."
"A sound policy," Sarveux said tightly. "Thank you, commissioner. That will be all…... for the moment."
Daybreak found a dark pall over the St. Lawrence.
Two of the critically injured had died, bringing the death toll to twelve. The body of one of the missing divers washed up on the southern shore six miles downriver. The other man was never found.
Numb with exhaustion and sick of heart, the crew of the Ocean Venturer lined the railings in silence as their dead were solemnly carried aboard the Phoenix for the voyage home. To some it was a bad dream that would eventually fade; for others the tragedy would remain in vivid clarity forever.
After Collins was extricated and hauled aboard with only three hours of breathable air left in his JIM suit, Pitt closed down all further operations on the wreck. Metz reported that the engine room was reasonably dry and the Ocean Venturer was holding its own, the list now being only ten degrees. The damage control specialists from the naval ships were released and the long hoses of their sup
port pumps withdrawn. The research ship would make home port under its own power, but on only one engine. The propeller shaft of the other had been bent out of alignment.
Pitt went down into the well-deck area and donned a thermal suit. He tightened his weight belt and was adjusting the harness on his air tanks when Gunn came up to him. "You're going down," he said flatly.
"After all that's happened, it would be criminal to leave without getting what we came for," Pitt replied.
"Do you think it wise to dive alone? Why not let Dunning and his men go with you?"
"They're in no condition," said Pitt. "They went beyond repetitive dive limits bringing up the bodies. Their nitrogen buildup is excessive."
Gunn knew he could have moved the Matterhorn with greater ease than he could budge a stubborn Dirk Pitt. He shrugged off the abortive attempt and made a grim face. "It's your funeral." Pitt grinned. "I appreciate the joyous send-off."
"I'll keep an eye peeled on the monitors," said Gunn. "And if you're a bad boy and come home past curfew, I might even bring down the air bottles for your decompression stops myself."
Pitt nodded a wordless thanks. Unexcitably patient, quiet and unassuming, Gunn was the eternal insurance policy, the one who saw to the endless details overlooked by the rest. He never had to be asked. He planned with deep forethought and then simply accomplished what had to be done.
Pitt adjusted his face mask, threw Gunn a casual salute and dropped into the cold abyss.
At twenty feet he rolled over on his back and gazed upward at the bottom of the Ocean Venturer, which hovered above like a great dark blimp. At forty feet it faded into the murk and was gone. The world of sky and clouds seemed light-years away.
The water was dense and opaque, a dull green. As the increasing pressure tightened around his body, Pitt felt a prodding desire to turn back, lie down on his back in the sun, take a long nap and forget the whole thing. He shook off the temptation and switched on his dive light as the green dusk became black.
Then the enormous ship materialized out of the gloom in three dimensions.
An oppressive silence hung over the corpse of the Empress of Ireland. It was a phantom ship on a voyage to nowhere.
