Clive Cussler - Deep Six

“No joke,” Pitt said seriously. “By towing it through the recently opened Florida Cross State Canal from Jacksonville on the Atlantic to Crystal River on the Gulf of Mexico, shortcutting the entire southern half of the state.”

The revelation sparked Giordino. He peered at the chart again, studying the scale. Then, using his thumb and forefinger as a pair of dividers, he roughly measured the reduced distance between Charleston and New Orleans. When he finally turned and looked at Pitt, he wore a sheepish smile.

“It works.” Then the smile quickly faded. “So what does it prove?”

“The Bougainvilles must have a heavily guarded dock facility and terminal where they unload their illegal cargoes. It probably sits on the banks of the river somewhere between New Orleans and the entrance to the gulf.”

“The Mississippi Delta?” Giordino showed his puzzlement. “How’d you pull that little number out of the hat?”

“Take a look,” Pitt said, pointing to the list of ships on the blackboard and then reading them off. “The Pilottown, Belle Chasse, Buras, Venice, Boothville, Chalmette —all ships under foreign registry but at one time owned by Bougainville Maritime.”

“I fail to make the connection.”

“Take another look at the chart. Every one of those ships is named after a town along the river delta.”

“A symbolic cipher?”

“The only mistake the Bougainvilles ever let slip, using a code to designate their area of covert operations.”

Giordino peered closer. “By God, it fits like a girl in tight shorts.”

Pitt rapped the chart with his knuckles. “I’ll bet my Isotta-Fraschini against your Bronco that’s where we’ll find Loren.”

“You’re on.”

“Run over to the NUMA air terminal and sign out a Lear jet. I’ll contact the admiral and explain why we’re flying to New Orleans.”

Giordino was already heading toward the door. “I’ll have the plane checked out and ready for takeoff when you get there,” he called over his shoulder.

Pitt hurried up the stairs to his apartment and threw some clothes in an overnight bag. He opened a gun cabinet and took out an old Colt Thompson submachine serial number 8545, and two loaded drums of.45-caliber cartridges and laid them in a violin case. Then he picked up the phone and called Sandecker’s office.

He identified himself to Sandecker’s private secretary and was put through. “Admiral?”

“Dirk?”

“I think I’ve got the barge area fixed.”

“Where?”

“The Mississippi River Delta. Al and I are leaving for there now.”

“What makes you think it’s in the delta?”

“Half guess, half deduction, but it’s the best lead we’ve got.”

Sandecker hesitated before replying. “You’d better hold up,” he said quietly.

“Hold up? What are you talking about?”

“Alan Moran is demanding the search be called off.”

Pitt was stunned. “What in hell for?”

“He says it’s a waste of time and taxpayers’ money to continue, because Vince Margolin is dead.”

“Moran is full of crap.”

“He has the clothes Margolin was wearing the night they all disappeared to back up his claim.”

“We still have Loren to think about.”

“Moran says she’s dead too.”

Pitt felt like he was sinking in quicksand. “He’s a damned liar!”

“Maybe so, but if he’s right about Margolin, you’re defaming the next President of the United States.”

“The day that little creep takes the oath is the day I turn in my citizenship.”

“You probably won’t be alone,” Sandecker said sourly. “But your personal feelings don’t alter the situation.”

Pitt stood unbudging. “I’ll call you from Louisiana.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. Stay in close contact. I’ll do everything I can to help from this end.”

“Thanks, you old fraud.”

“Get your ass in gear and tell Giordino to stop swiping my cigars.”

Pitt grinned and hung up. He finished packing and hurried from the hangar. Three minutes after he drove off, his phone began to ring.

Two hundred miles away an ashen-faced Sal Casio despairingly waited in vain for an answer.

Ten minutes after twelve noon, Alan Moran walked through the main corridor of the Capitol, down a narrow staircase and opened the door to an out-of-the-way office he kept for privacy. Most men in his position were constantly surrounded by a hive of aides, but Moran preferred to travel a solitary trail, unhindered by inane conversation.

He always wore the wary look of an antelope scanning the African plain for predators. He had the expressionless eyes of a man whose only love was power, power attained by whatever means, at whatever cost. To achieve his prestigious position in Congress, Moran had carefully nurtured a billboard image. In his public life he oozed a religious fervor, the personification of the friendly shy man with a warm sense of humor, the appeal of the neighbor next door, ever ready to lend his lawn mower, and the past of a man born underprivileged, self-made.

His private life couldn’t have been more at odds. He was a closet atheist who looked on his constituents and the general public as ignorant rabble whose chronic complaints led to an open license to twist and control for his own advantage. Never married, with no close friends, he lived frugally like a penitent monk in a small rented apartment. Every dollar over and above subsistence level went into his secret corporation in Chicago, where it was added to funds obtained through illegal contributions, bribes and other corrupt investments. Then it was spread and sown to increase his power base until there were few men and women with top positions in business and government who weren’t tied to his coattails by political favors and influence.

Douglas Oates, Sam Emmett, Martin Brogan, Alan Mercier and Jesse Simmons, who was recently released from house arrest, were seated in Moran’s office as he entered. They all rose as he took his place behind a desk. There was an air of smugness about him that was obvious to his visitors. He had summoned them to his private territory and they had no choice but to respond.

“Thank you for meeting with me, gentlemen,” he said with a false smile. “I assume you know the purpose.”

“To discuss your possible succession to the Presidency,” Oates replied.

“There is no possible about it,” Moran rejoined waspishly. “The Senate is scheduled to begin the trial at seven o’clock this evening. As next in line to the executive office, I feel it is my sworn duty to take the oath immediately afterward and assume the responsibility for healing the wounds caused by the President’s harmful delusions.”

“Aren’t you jumping the gun?” asked Simmons.

“Not if it means stopping the President from any more outrageous actions.”

Oates looked dubious. “Some people might interpret your undue reaction, at least until Vince Margolin is proven dead, as an improper attempt to usurp power, especially when considering your part in motivating the President’s ouster.”

Moran glared at Oates and shifted his stare to Emmett. “You have the Vice President’s clothing that was found in the river.”

“My FBI lab has identified the clothing as belonging to Margolin,” acknowledged Emmett. “But it shows no indication of being immersed in water for two weeks.”

“Most likely it washed onshore and dried out.”

“You say the fisherman who came to your office with the evidence stated he snagged it in the middle of the Potomac River.”

“You’re the Director of the FBI,” snapped Moran angrily. “You figure it out. I’m not on trial here.”