Clive Cussler - Deep Six

Lugovoy’s face was expressionless, but a faint pallor was there that was missing before. He flexed his fists, inhaled deeply and eyed the phone, waiting.

The light blinked and the phone chimed again.

“Lugovoy.”

“Youse sure Willie ain’t dere?”

“Willie ain’t here!” he replied, mimicking the caller’s accent. He slammed the receiver onto the cradle.

Lugovoy sat shock-still for almost thirty seconds, hands tightly clasped together on the desk, head lowered, eyes staring into space. Nervously, he rubbed a hand over his bald head and adjusted the horn-rimmed glasses on his nose. Still lost in thought, he rose, dutifully turned out the lights and walked from the office.

He exited the elevator into the main lobby and strode past the stained-glass panel by Marc Chagall symbolizing man’s struggle for peace. He ignored it, as he always had.

There were no cabs at the stand in front of the building, so he hailed one on First Avenue. He gave the driver his destination and sat stiffly in the back seat, too tense to relax.

Lugovoy was not worried that he might be followed. He was a respected psychologist, admired for his work in mental health among the underdeveloped countries. His papers on thought processes and mind response were widely studied. During his six months in New York with the United Nations he had kept his nose clean. He indulged in no espionage work and held no direct ties with the undercover people of the KGB. He was discreetly told by a friend with the embassy in Washington that the FBI had given him a low priority and only performed an occasional, almost perfunctory observation.

Lugovoy was not in the United States to steal secrets. His purpose went far beyond anything the American counterspy investigators ever dreamed. The phone call meant the plan that was conceived seven years earlier had been put into motion.

The cab pulled to a stop at West and Liberty streets in front of the Vista International Hotel. Lugovoy paid the driver and walked through the ornate lobby into the concourse outside. He paused and stared up at the awesome towers of the World Trade Center.

Lugovoy often wondered what he was doing here in this land of glass buildings, uncountable automobiles, people always rushing, restaurants and grocery stores in every block. It was not his kind of world.

He showed his identification to a guard standing by a private express elevator in the south tower and took it to the one hundredth floor. The doors parted and he entered the open lobby of the Bougainville Maritime Lines, Inc., whose offices covered the entire floor. His shoes sank into a thick white carpet. The walls were paneled in a gleaming hand-rubbed rosewood, and the room was richly decorated in Oriental antiques. Curio cases containing exquisite ceramic horses stood in the corners, and rare examples of Japanese-designed textiles hung from the ceiling.

An attractive woman with large dark eyes, a delicate oval Asian face and smooth amber skin smiled as he approached. “May I help you, sir?”

“My name is Lugovoy.”

“Yes, Mr. Lugovoy,” she said, pronouncing his name correctly. “Madame Bougainville is expecting you.”

She spoke softly into an intercom and a tall raven-haired woman with Eurasian features appeared in a high-arched doorway.

“If you will please follow me, Mr. Lugovoy.”

Lugovoy was impressed. Like many Russians he was naive in Western business methods and wrongly assumed the office employees had stayed late for his benefit. He trailed the woman down a long corridor hung with paintings of cargo ships flying the Bougainville Maritime flag, their bows surging through turquoise seas. The guide knocked lightly on an arched door, opened it and stepped aside.

Lugovoy crossed the threshold and stiffened in astonishment. The room was vast — mosaic floor in blue and gold floral patterns, massive conference table supported by ten carved dragons that seemed to stretch into infinity. But it was the life-size terra-cotta warriors in armor and prancing horses standing in silent splendor under soft spotlights in alcoves that held him in awe.

He instantly recognized them as the tomb guardians of China’s early emperor Ch’in Shin Huang Ti. The effect was dazzling. He marveled that they had somehow slipped through the Chinese government’s fingers into private hands.

“Please come forward and sit down, Mr. Lugovoy.”

He was so taken aback by the magnificence of the room that he failed to notice a frail Oriental woman sitting in a wheelchair. In front of her was an ebony chair with gold silk cushions and a small table with a teapot and cups.

“Madame Bougainville,” he said. “We meet at last.”

The matriarch of the Bougainville shipping dynasty was eighty-nine years old and weighed about the same number of pounds. Her glistening gray hair was pulled back from her temples in a bun. Her face was strangely unlined, but her body looked ancient and frail. It was her eyes that absorbed Lugovoy. They were an intense blue and blazed with a ferocity that made him uncomfortable.

“You are prompt,” she said simply. Her voice was soft and clear without the usual hesitation of advanced age.

“I came as soon as I received the coded telephone call.”

“Are you prepared to conduct your brainwashing project?”

“Brainwashing is an ugly term. I prefer mind intervention.”

“Academic terminology is irrelevant,” she said indifferently.

“My staff has been assembled for months. With the proper facilities we can begin in two days.”

“You’ll begin tomorrow morning.”

“So soon?”

“I’ve been informed by my grandson that ideal conditions have turned in our favor. The transfer will take place tonight.”

Lugovoy instinctively looked at his watch. “You don’t give me much time.”

“The opportunity has to be snatched when it arrives,” she said firmly. “I made a bargain with your government, and I am about to fulfill the first half of it. Everything depends on speed. You and your staff have ten days to finish your part of the project—”

“Ten days!” he gasped.

“Ten days,” she repeated. “That is your deadline. Beyond that I will cast you adrift.”

A shiver ran up Lugovoy’s spine. He didn’t need a detailed picture. It was plain that if something went wrong, he and his people would conveniently vanish— probably in the ocean.

A quiet muffled the huge boardroom. Then Madame Bougainville leaned forward in the wheelchair. “Would you like some tea?”

Lugovoy hated tea, but he nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

“The finest blend of Chinese herbs. It costs over a hundred dollars a pound on the retail market.”

He took the offered cup and made a polite sip before he set it on the table. “You’ve been informed, I assume, that my work is still in the research stage. My experiments have only been proven successful eleven times out of fifteen. I cannot guarantee perfect results within a set time limit.”

“Smarter minds than yours have calculated how long White House advisers can stall the news media.”

Lugovoy’s eyebrows rose. “My understanding was that my subject was to be a minor American congressman whose temporary disappearance would go unnoticed.”

“You were misled,” she explained matter-of-factly. “Your General Secretary and President thought it best you should not know your subject’s identity until we were ready.”

“If I’d been given time to study his personality traits, I could have been better prepared.”

“I shouldn’t have to lecture on security requirements to a Russian,” she said, her eyes burning into him. “Why do you think we’ve had no contact between us until tonight?”

Unsure of what to answer, Lugovoy took a long swallow of the tea. To his peasant taste it was like drinking watered-down perfume.