Clive Cussler - Cyclops

"The thought crossed my mind, but I'm not completely sold on it. Our friend in the White House is tapped into the Oval Office. Everyone who calls or walks in and out of the executive wing is accounted for. Of course, there's always the President's private line, but I don't think this is the sort of mission he could instigate over the telephone."

"Interesting," said Eriksen. "The fat man started his probe at the facility where we first created the idea of the Jersey Colony."

"That's right," Hudson acknowledged. "He rifled Earl Mooney's office at Pattenden Lab and traced a phone call to General Fisher, even made some remark about you wanting me to pay for the airplane."

"An obvious reference to our advertised deaths," Eriksen said thoughtfully. "That means he's tied us together."

"Then he turned up in Colorado and mugged Fisher, stealing a notebook with the names and numbers of the top people on the Jersey Colony project, including those of the `inner core.' Then he must have seen through the trap we laid to trail him from New Mexico and escaped. We got a small break when one our security men who was watching the Albuquerque airport spotted a fat man arrive in an unmarked private jet and take off again only two hours later."

"He must have rented a car, used some sort of identification."

Hudson shook his head. "Nothing of any use. He showed a driver's license and a credit card from a George Goodfly of New Orleans, who doesn't exist."

Eriksen tapped the ashes from his pipe into a glass dish. "Seems odd he didn't drive to Santa Fe and attempt to penetrate Clyde Booth's operation."

"My guess is he's only on a fact-finding hunt."

"But who is paying him? The Russians?"

"Certainly not the KGB," said Hudson. "They don't send subtle messages over the phone or move around the country in a private jet. No, this man moves fast. I'd say he's running on a tight deadline."

Eriksen stared into his coffee cup. "The Soviet lunar mission is scheduled to set down on the moon in five days. That has to be his deadline."

"I believe you may be right."

Eriksen stared at him. "You realize now that the power behind the intruder has to be the President," he said quietly.

Hudson nodded slowly. "I blinded myself to the possibility," he said in a distant voice. "I wanted to believe he would back the security of the Jersey Colony from Russian penetration."

"From what you told me of your meeting, he wasn't about to condone a battle on the moon between our people and Soviet cosmonauts. Nor would he be overjoyed to learn Steinmetz destroyed three Soviet spacecraft."

"The point that bothers me," said Hudson, "is if we accept the President's interference, why, with all of his resources, would he send only one man?"

"Because once he accepted the Jersey Colony as a reality, he realized our supporters cover his every move, and he rightly assumed we could throw a school of red herrings across our trail to mislead any investigation. A wise man, the President. He brought in a ringer from left field who cracked our walls before we knew what was happening."

"There may still be time to send him on the wrong scent."

"Too late. The fat man has Fisher's notebook," said Eriksen. "He knows who we are and where to find us. He is a very real threat. He started at the tail and now he's working toward the head. When the fat man comes through this door, Leo, the President will surely move to stop any confrontation between the Soviet cosmonauts and our people in the Jersey Colony."

"Are you hinting we eliminate the fat man?" asked Hudson.

"No," Eriksen replied. "Better not to antagonize the President. We'll merely put him on ice for a few days."

"I wonder where he'll turn up next," Hudson pondered.

Eriksen methodically reloaded his pipe. "He began his witch-hunt in Oregon and from there to Colorado and then New Mexico. My guess is his next stop will be Texas, at the office of our man with NASA in Houston."

Hudson punched a number on his desk phone. "A pity I can't be there when we snare the bastard."

<<30>>

Pitt spent the next two hours on his back in bed, listening to the sounds of metal doors being opened and closed, tuning in on the footsteps heard outside his cell. The youthful guard brought lunch and waited while Pitt ate, making sure all the utensils were accounted for when he left. This time the guard seemed in a better humor and was unarmed. He also left the door open during the meal, giving Pitt a chance to study the latch.

He was surprised to see that it was an ordinary doorknob lock instead of a heavy-security or mortice throw bolt. His cell was never meant to serve as a jail. It was mostly likely intended as a storeroom.

Pitt stirred a spoon over a bowl of foul-smelling fish stew and handed it back, more interested in the closing of the door than eating slop that he knew was the first step of a psychological ploy to lower his mental defense mechanisms. The guard stepped back and yanked the iron door shut. Pitt cocked his ear and caught a single, decisive click immediately after the slam.

He knelt and closely examined the crack between the door and the strike. The gap was 1/8 inch across. Then he scoured the cell, searching for an object thin enough to slip between the crack so he could jimmy the latch.

The bunk supporting the down mattress was made of wood with grooved joints. No metal or hard, flat surface there. The faucets and spouts on the sink were ceramic and the plumbing underneath and in the toilet tank offered nothing he could mold with his hands. He got lucky with the wardrobe. Any one of the hinges would work perfectly, except he could not remove the screws with his fingernails.

He was pondering this problem when the door swung open and the guard stood in the entrance. His eyes cautiously scanned the cell for a moment. Then he brusquely motioned Pitt outside, led him through a maze of gray concrete corridors, stopping finally outside a door marked with the numeral 6.

Pitt was roughly shoved into a small boxlike room with a sickly stench about it. The floor was cement with a drain in its center. The walls were painted a dreary shade of red that ominously matched the pattern of stains that were splattered on them. The only illumination came from a dull yellow bulb hanging by a cord from the ceiling. It was the most depressing room Pitt had ever entered.

The only furniture was a cheap, deeply scarred wooden chair. But it was the man seated in the chair that Pitt's eyes focused on. The eyes that stared back were as expressionless as ice cubes. Pitt could not tell the stranger's height, but his chest and shoulders were so ponderous they seemed deformed, the look of a body builder who had spent thousands of hours of sweat and effort. The head was completely shaven, and the face might have been considered almost handsome but for the large misshapen nose that was totally out of place with its surroundings. He was wearing only a pair of rubber boots and tropical shorts. Except for a Bismarck moustache, he looked strangely familiar to Pitt.

Without looking up he began reading off a list of crimes Pitt was accused of. They began with violating Cuban air space, shooting down a helicopter, murdering its crew, working as an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, entering the country illegally. The accusations droned on until they ended at last with unlawful entry into a forbidden military zone. The voice spoke in pure American with a trace of a Western accent.

"How do you respond?"

"Guilty as sin."

A piece of paper and a pen were held out by an enormous hand. "Please sign the confession."

Pitt took the pen and signed the paper against a wall without reading the wording.

The interrogator stared at the signature broodingly. "I think you've made a mistake."