Clive Cussler - Shock Wave

Roy Van Fleet and his wife, Robin, who had taken Maeve under her wing, invited her to join them in attending a party thrown by a wealthy owner of an undersea exploration company. She was loath to go, but Robin had pushed her, refusing to take no for an answer and insisting she put a little fun in her life, never realizing the torment Maeve was going through.

“Loads of capital bigwigs and politicians will attend,” Robin gushed. “We can’t miss it.”

After applying her makeup and pulling her hair tightly back in a bun, Maeve put on a brown Empire-waist dress of silk chiffon and embroidered net with beaded bodice and a short three-tier skirt that came to several inches above her knees. She had splurged on the outfit in Sydney, thinking it quite stylish at the time. Now she wasn’t so sure. She suddenly suffered pangs of shyness at showing too much leg at a Washington party.

“The devil with it,” she said to herself in front of a full-length mirror. “Nobody knows me anyway.”

She peered through the curtains at the street outside. There was a light layer of snow on the ground, but the streets were clear. The temperature was cold but not frigid. She poured herself a short glass of vodka on ice, put on a long black coat that came down to her ankles and waited for the Van Fleets to pick her up.

Pitt showed the invitation he’d borrowed from the admiral at the door of the country club and was passed through the beautiful wooden doors carved with the likenesses of famous golfers. He dropped off his topcoat at the cloakroom and was directed into a spacious ballroom paneled in dark walnut. One of Washington’s elite interior decorators had created a stunning undersea illusion in the room. Cleverly designed paper fish hung from the ceiling, while hidden lighting gave off a soft wavering blue-green glow that provided an eye-pleasing watery effect.

The host, president of Deep Abyss Engineering, his wife and other company officials stood in a receiving line to greet the guests. Pitt avoided them and dodged the line, heading straight for one dim corner of the bar, where he ordered a tequila on the rocks with lime. Then he turned, leaned his back against the bar and surveyed the room.

There must have been close to two hundred people present. An orchestra was playing a medley from motion picture musical scores. He recognized several congressmen and four or five senators, all on committees dealing with the oceans and the environment. Many of the men wore white dinner jackets. Most were in the more common black evening clothes, some with vividly patterned cummerbunds and bow ties. Pitt preferred the old look. His tux sported a vest with a heavy gold chain draped across the front, attached to a pocket watch that had once belonged to his great-grandfather, who had been a steam locomotive engineer on the Santa Fe Railroad.

The women, mostly wives with a few mistresses mixed in, dressed elegantly, some in long dresses, some in shorter skirts complemented by brocaded or sequined jackets. He could always tell the married from the single couples. The married stood beside each other as if they were old friends; the single couples were constantly touching each other.

Pitt wall-flowered at cocktail parties and did not enjoy mingling to make small talk. He was easily bored and seldom stayed more than an hour before heading back to the apartment above his aircraft hangar. Tonight was different. He was on a quest. Sandecker had informed him that Maeve was coming with the Van Fleets. His eyes wandered the tables and the crowded dance floor but found no sign of her.

Either she changed her mind at the last minute or hadn’t arrived yet, he figured. Never one to compete for the attention of a gorgeous girl surrounded by admirers, he picked out a plain woman in her thirties who weighed as much as he. She was sitting alone at a dinner table and was thrilled when a good-looking stranger walked up and asked her to dance. The women other men ignored, the ones who lost out in the natural-born beauty department, Pitt discovered to be the smartest and most interesting. This one turned out to be a ranking official at the State Department, who regaled him with inside gossip on foreign relations. He danced with two other ladies who were considered by some to be unattractive, one a private secretary to the party’s host and the other a chief aide to a senator who was chairman of the Oceans Committee. Having performed his pleasurable duty, Pitt returned to the bar for another tequila.

It was then that Maeve walked into the ballroom.

Just looking at her, Pitt was pleasantly surprised to find a warm glow settling over his body. The entire room seemed to blur, and everyone in it faded into a gray mist, leaving Maeve standing alone in the center of a radiant aura.

He came back down to earth as she stepped away from the receiving line ahead of the Van Fleets and paused to gaze at the crowded mass of partygoers. Her long blond hair, pulled back in a bun to reveal every detail of her face, highlighted her fabulous cheekbones. She self-consciously raised a hand and held it to her, between her breasts, fingers slightly spread. The short dress showed off her long, tapered legs and enhanced the perfect molding of her body. She was majestic, he thought with a trace of lust. There was no other word to describe her. She was poised with the grace of an antelope on the edge of flight.

“Now there’s a lovely sweet young thing,” said the bartender, staring at Maeve.

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Pitt.

Then she was walking with the Van Fleets to a table, where they all sat down and ordered from a waiter. Maeve was no sooner settled in her chair when men, both young and old enough to be her grandfather, came up and asked her to dance. She politely turned down every request. He was amused to see that no appeals moved her. They quickly gave up and moved on, feeling boyishly rejected. The Van Fleets excused themselves to dance while they waited for the first course. Maeve sat alone.

“She’s choosy, that one,” observed the bartender.

“Time to send in the first team,” Pitt said as he set his empty glass on the bar.

He walked directly across the dance floor through the swaying couples without stepping left or right. A portly man Pitt recognized as a senator from the state of Nevada brushed against him. The senator started to say something, but Pitt gave him a withering stare that cut him off.

Maeve was people watching out of sheer boredom when she became vaguely aware of a man striding purposefully in her direction. At first she paid him little notice, thinking he was only another stranger who wanted to dance with her. In another time, another place, she might have been flattered by the attention, but her mind was twenty thousand kilometers away. Only when the intruder approached her table, placed his hands on the blue tablecloth and leaned toward her did she recognize him. Maeve’s face lit with inexpressible joy.

“Oh, Dirk, I thought I’d never see you again,” she gasped breathlessly.

“I came to beg your forgiveness for not saying goodbye when A1 and I abruptly left the Ice Hunter.”

She was both surprised and pleased at his behavior. She thought he held no affection for her. Now it was written in his eyes. “You couldn’t have known how much I needed you,” she said, her voice barely audible above the music.

He came around the table and sat beside her. “I know now,” he said solemnly.

Her face turned to avoid his gaze. “You could not begin to understand the scrape I’m in.”

Pitt took Maeve’s hand in his. It was the first time he had deliberately touched her. “I had a nice little chat with Boudicca,” he said with a slight sardonic grin. “She told me everything.”

Her poise and grace seemed to crumble. “You? Boudicca? How is that possible?”