Clive Cussler - Deep Six

The cavernous interior was painted a glossy white, which brightly reflected the sun’s rays through huge skylights in the curved roof, and had the look of a transportation museum. The polished concrete floor held four long orderly rows of antique and classic automobiles. Most gleamed as elegantly as the day their coachmakers added the finishing touch. A few were in various stages of restoration. Sandecker lingered by a majestic 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost with coach-work by Park-Ward and a massive red 1925 Isotta-Fraschini with a torpedo body by Sala.

The two centerpieces were an old Ford trimotor aircraft known to aviation enthusiasts as the “tin goose” and an early-twentieth-century railroad Pullman car with the words MANHATTAN LIMITED painted in gilded letters on its steel side.

Sandecker made his way up a circular iron stairway to a glass-enclosed apartment that spanned the upper level across one end of the hangar. The living room was decorated in marine antiques. One wall was lined with shelves supporting delicately crafted ship models in glass cases.

He found Pitt standing in front of a stove studying a strange-looking mixture in a frying pan. Pitt wore a pair of khaki hiking shorts, tattered tennis shoes and a T-shirt with the words RAISE THE LUSITANIA across the front.

“You’re just in time to eat, Admiral.”

“What have you got there?” asked Sandecker, eyeing the mixture with suspicion.

“Nothing fancy. A spicy Mexican omelet.”

“I’ll settle for a cup of coffee and half a grapefruit.”

Pitt served as they sat down at a kitchen table and poured the coffee. Sandecker frowned and waved a newspaper in the air. “You made page two.”

“I hope I do as well in other papers.”

“What do you expect to prove?” Sandecker demanded. “Holding a press conference and claiming you found the San Marino, which you didn’t, and the Pilottown, which is supposed to be top secret. Have you lost your gray matter?”

Pitt paused between bites of the omelet. “I made no mention of the nerve agent.”

“Fortunately the Army quietly buried it yesterday.”

“No harm done. Now that the Pilottown is empty, she’s just another rusting shipwreck.”

“The President won’t see it that way. If he wasn’t in New Mexico, we’d both be picking our asses out of a White House carpet by now.”

Sandecker was interrupted by a buzzing noise. Pitt rose from the table and pushed a switch on a small panel.

“Somebody at the door?” inquired Sandecker.

Pitt nodded.

“This is a Florida grapefruit.” Sandecker grumbled, spitting out a seed.

“So?”

“I prefer Texas.”

“I’ll make a note,” said Pitt with a grin.

“Getting back to your cockamamie story,” Sandecker said, squeezing out the last drops of juice in a spoon, “I’d like to know your reasoning.”

Pitt told him.

“Why not let the Justice Department handle it?” Sandecker asked. “That’s what they’re paid for.”

Pitt’s eyes hardened and he pointed his fork menacingly. “Because the Justice people will never be called in to investigate. The government isn’t about to admit over three hundred deaths were caused by a stolen nerve agent that isn’t supposed to exist. Lawsuits and damaging publicity would go on for years. They want to whitewash the whole mess into oblivion. The Augustine Volcano eruption was timely. Later today the President’s press secretary will hand out a bogus cover-up blaming sulphuric gas clouds for the deaths.”

Sandecker looked at him sternly for a moment. Then he asked, “Who told you that?”

“I did,” came a feminine voice from the doorway.

Loren’s face was wrapped in a disarming smile. She had been out jogging and was dressed in brief red satin shorts with a matching tank top and headband. The Virginia humidity had brought out the sweat and she was still a little breathless. She dried her face with a small towel that was tucked in her waistband.

Pitt made the introductions. “Admiral James Sandecker, Congresswoman Loren Smith.”

“We’ve sat across from each other during Maritime Committee meetings,” said Loren, extending her hand.

Sandecker didn’t need clairvoyance to read Pitt and Loren’s relationship. “Now I see why you’ve always looked kindly on my NUMA budget proposals.”

If Loren felt any embarrassment at his insinuation, she didn’t show it. “Dirk is a very persuasive lobbyist,” she said sweetly.

“Like some coffee?” asked Pitt.

“No, thanks. I’m too thirsty for coffee.” She went over to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of buttermilk.

“You know the subject of Press Secretary Thompson’s news release?” Sandecker prompted her.

Loren nodded. “My press aide and his wife are chummy with the Sonny Thompsons. They all had dinner together last night. Thompson mentioned that the White House was laying the Alaskan tragedy to rest, but that was all. He didn’t slip the details.”

Sandecker turned to Pitt. “If you persist in this vendetta, you’ll be stepping on a lot of toes.”

“I won’t give it up,” Pitt said gravely.

Sandecker looked at Loren. “And you, Congress-woman Smith?”

“Loren.”

“Loren,” he obliged. “May I ask what your interest is in this?”

She hesitated for a fraction of a second and then said, “Let’s just say congressional curiosity about a possible government scandal.”

“You haven’t told her the true purpose behind your Alaskan fishing expedition?” Sandecker asked Pitt.

“No.”

“I think you should tell her.”

“Do I have your official permission?”

The admiral nodded. “A friend in Congress will come in handy before your hunt is over.”

“And you, Admiral, where do you stand?” Pitt asked him.

Sandecker stared hard across the table at Pitt, examining every feature of the craggy face as though he were seeing it for the first time, wondering what manner of man would step far beyond normal bounds for no personal gain. He read only a fierce determination. It was an expression he had seen many times in the years he’d known Pitt.

“I’ll back you until the President orders your ass shot,” he said at last. “Then you’re on your own.”

Pitt held back an audible sigh of relief. It was going to be all right. Better than all right.

Min Koryo looked down at the newspaper on her desk. “What do you make of this?”

Lee Tong leaned over her shoulder and read the opening sentences of the article aloud. “ ‘It was announced yesterday by Dirk Pitt, Special Projects Director for NUMA, that two ships missing for over twenty years have been found. The San Marino and the Pilottown, both Liberty-class vessels built during World War Two, were discovered on the seafloor in the North Pacific off Alaska.’ “

“A bluff!” Min Koryo snapped. “Someone in Washington, probably from the Justice Department, had nothing better to do, so they sent up a trial balloon. They’re on a fishing expedition, nothing more.”

“I think you’re only half right, aunumi ,” Lee Tong said thoughtfully. “I suspect that while NUMA was searching for the source behind the deaths in Alaskan waters, they stumbled on the ship containing the nerve agent.”

“And this press release is a scheme to ferret out the true owners of that ship,” Min Koryo added.

Lee Tong nodded. “The government is gambling we will make an inquiry that can be traced.”

Min Koryo sighed. “A pity the ship wasn’t sunk as planned.”

Lee Tong came around and sank into a chair in front of the desk. “Bad luck,” he said, thinking back. “After the explosives failed to detonate, the storm hit, and I was unable to reboard the ship.”