Clive Cussler - The Navigator

She was less thankful when they began to pass through a deteriorating neighborhood of seedy apartment houses and run-down commercial areas that looked as if they dated back to the Great Depression. Graffiti were scrawled on every vertical service; litter had washed up along the gutters. The unsmiling people she saw seemed stoned on drugs, as they probably were, given their surroundings.

Minutes later, they passed through an area that looked like a war zone. What had once obviously been a busy commercial area was a deserted neighborhood of abandoned stores, shut-down garages, and padlocked brick warehouses. Vacant lots were overgrown with weeds and cluttered with windblown papers.

Carina was frustrated at not being able to communicate with the truck. She tapped her car horn. Ridley stuck his muscular arm out the window and waved, but the truck showed no sign of stopping. She was looking for a wide place in the road where she could come up alongside, when the truck turned off into a potholed restaurant parking lot. The word PIZZA could barely be made out on the faded sign on the front of the dilapidated brick building.

Carina expected Ridley to come back and tell her that they were lost. When he didn’t, she became annoyed, then angry. She clutched the wheel as if she wanted to pull it off. The truck just sat there. She thought about getting out, but one glance around at her desolate surroundings told her that she was in a very unhealthy place.

She reached over to press the lock button on the door. In that instant, a figure materialized from behind an old Dumpster, opened a rear door of her car, and got into the backseat.

“Hello,” the man said in a soft, breathy voice.

Carina looked in the rearview mirror. Round eyes stared out of a baby face. She was looking at the hijacker she’d seen as she lay tied up in the ship container. She was gripped with fear, but she had the presence of mind to reach for the door handle. She felt coldness on her neck and heard a low hiss. She lost consciousness, and her head lolled on her chest.

The man got out of the car and went over to the back of the truck. He knocked on the doors, which opened a second later. The guards inside the cargo area offered no resistance when he climbed in and inspected the wooden box. He spoke into a hand radio. A moment later, a truck with a FAST DELIVERY logo pulled around from behind the derelict pizza house. The statue was quickly unloaded and exchanged for four limp bodies that were taken from the second truck.

The baby-faced man went over and gazed at Carina, thinking how beautiful and peaceful she appeared. He flexed the fingers that could still her beating heart in an instant and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. With his homicidal impulse more or less under control, he climbed into the back of the moving van. The van pulled out of the parking lot, with the delivery truck close behind.

Chapter 22

THE YUKON PULLED INTO the parking lot of a Potomac River marina and Austin got out. The second agent had been following in the NUMA Jeep. He parked the vehicle, tossed Austin the keys, and got into the SUV.

Flagg leaned out the window. “Let’s get together for lunch at Langley sometime. We can bore the crap out of Jake here with Cold War stories.”

“We were pretty dumb back then,” Austin said with a shake of his head.

Flagg laughed. “Damn lucky too.” He put the vehicle into gear and drove off.

Austin strolled along the line of boats. A few people puttered around, but otherwise the riverside was relatively quiet. He stopped to inspect a vintage motor cruiser.

The white-hulled, wooden boat was about fifty feet long, and the mahogany trim was polished to a blinding shine. The name on the hull was LOVELY LADY. A man was sitting in a deck chair reading a copy of the Washington Post . He saw Austin, put his paper aside, and rose from his chair.

“What do you think of her?” the man said.

Austin was fond of classic yachts and their understated air of luxury, which was so different from the garish display of extravagance to be found in some of the modern-day craft tied up at the marina. “Her name says it all.”

“Indeed it does.”

“I know it’s not polite to ask a lady’s age, but I was wondering how old she was.”

“Don’t worry about insulting the old girl, my friend. She knows she’s as beautiful as the day she was born in 1931.”

Austin ran his eyes over the craft’s sleek lines. “I’d guess she came out of the Stephens boatyard in California.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like more than a guess. Stephens built her for one of the lesser-known Vanderbilts. Would you like to come aboard for a closer look, Mr. Austin?”

Austin’s lips widened in a tight smile. It was no accident that Flagg had dropped him off near the boat. He walked up the short gangway onto the deck and shook hands with a man who introduced himself as Elwood Nickerson.

Nickerson was tall and wiry, with the physique of a tennis player. His tanned face was relatively unlined, and he could have been in his sixties or seventies. He was dressed in beat-up, tan canvas shorts, weathered boat shoes, and a GEORGETOWNUNIVERSITY T-shirt that was one thread short of being a rag. His close-trimmed white hair and manicured fingernails, and the tinge of a prep school accent, suggested that he was no boat bum.

He regarded Austin with flinty gray eyes. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Austin. Thank you for coming by. Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger antics. I’d offer you a Barbancourt rum on the rocks, but it’s probably too early.”

Nickerson knew Austin’s current drink of choice. Either he’d been snooping in his liquor cabinet or he had access to government personnel files. “It’s never too early for good rum, but I’ll settle for a glass of water, and an explanation,” Austin said.

“The water I can provide immediately. The answer to your question will take a little longer.”

“I’ve got time.”

Nickerson called out to the boat’s captain and said they were ready to leave. The captain started the engines while his mate cast off the dock lines. As the boat pulled out into the river and cruised downstream, Nickerson ushered Austin into a spacious deck salon whose centerpiece was a rectangular mahogany table that had been polished to a mirror finish.

Nickerson offered Austin a seat at the table. Then he got a bottle of springwater from the refrigerator and poured Austin a glass.

“I’m with the Near East Section at the State Department, where I preside as chief mucky-muck and general factotum,” Nickerson said. “This outing has the blessing of my boss, the secretary of state. He thought it best that he not be involved at this time.”

“You’ve been digging around in my personnel file, which indicates clearance at a higher level than Foggy Bottom.”

Nickerson nodded. “When we brought this matter to the attention of the White House, Vice President Sandecker suggested that we go to your boss, Director Pitt. He said to dump this in your lap.”

“That was very generous of the director,” Austin said. Typical Pitt, he mused. Dirk liked decisions to be made by those most likely to be affected by their consequences.

Nickerson caught the irony in Austin’s voice. “Mr. Pitt was being sensitive to our wishes. He has the highest confidence in your abilities. It was my decision to do a background check on you. I have a reputation for being careful.”

“And mysterious as well.”

“Your file said you have little patience with small talk. I’ll get right to the point then. Two days ago, my office received a visit from Pieter DeVries of the NSA. DeVries is one of the most respected cryptanalysts in the world. He brought us information of a startling nature.”