Clive Cussler - Deep Six

“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.”

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.”

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.