Deep Six

“He’s in good physical shape,” said the doctor. “He should mend pretty quickly.”

“Pardon the mundane question,” said Pitt, “but where am I?”

“Welcome to the U.S. Naval Hospital at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” the doctor answered. “You and Mr. Giordino were fished out of the water by one of our recovery craft.”

Pitt focused his eyes on Giordino. “Are you all right?”

“He has a bruise the size of a cantaloupe on his abdomen, but he’ll survive,” the doctor said, smiling. “By the way, I understand he saved your life.”

Pitt cleared the mist from his mind and tried to recall. “The steward from the Leonid Andreyev was playing baseball with my head.”

“Pounded you under the boat with an oar,” Giordino explained. “I slipped over the side, swam underwater until I grabbed your arm, dragged you to the surface. The steward would have beat on me too except for the timely arrival of a Navy helicopter whose paramedics jumped into the water and helped sling us on board.”

“And Loren?”

Giordino averted his gaze. “She’s listed as missing.”

“Missing, hell!” Pitt snarled. He grimaced from the sudden pain in his chest as he rose to his elbows. “We both know she was alive and sitting in the lifeboat.”

A solemn look clouded Giordino’s face. “Her name didn’t appear on a list of survivors given out by the ship’s captain.”

“A Bougainville ship!” Pitt blurted as his memory came flooding back. “The Oriental steward who tried to brain us pointed toward the—”

“Chalmette,” Giordino prompted.

“Yes, the Chalmette, and said it belonged to him. He also spoke my name.”

“Stewards are supposed to remember passengers’ names. He knew you as Charlie Gruber in cabin thirty-four.”

“No, he rightly accused me of meddling in Bougainville affairs, and his last words were ‘Bon voyage, Dirk Pitt.’ “

Giordino gave a puzzled shrug. “Beats hell out of me how he knew you. But why would a Bougainville man work as a steward on a Russian cruise ship?”

“I can’t begin to guess.”

“And lie about Loren’s rescue?”

Pitt merely gave an imperceptible shake of his head.

“Then she’s being held prisoner by the Bougainvilles,” said Giordino as if suddenly enlightened. “But for what reason?”

“You keep asking questions I can’t answer,” Pitt said irritably. “Where is the Chalmette now?”

“Headed toward Miami to land the survivors.”

“How long have I been unconscious?”

“About thirty-two hours,” replied the doctor.

“Still time,” said Pitt. “The Chalmette won’t reach the Florida coast for several hours yet.”

He raised himself to a sitting position and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The room began to seesaw back and forth.

The doctor moved forward and steadied him by both arms. “I hope you don’t think you’re rushing off somewhere.”

“I intend to be standing on the dock when the Chalmette arrives in Miami,” Pitt said implacably.

A stern medical-profession look grew on the doctor’s face. “You’re staying in this bed for the next four days. You can’t travel around with those fractured ribs, and we don’t know how serious your concussion is.”

“Sorry, Doc,” Giordino said, “but you’ve both been overruled.”

Pitt stared at him stonily. “Who’s to stop me?”

“Admiral Sandecker, for one. Secretary of State Doug Oates for another,” Giordino answered as de-tachedly as though he were reading aloud the stock market quotes for the day. “Orders came down for you to fly to Washington the minute you came around. We may be in big trouble. I have a hunch we dipped into the wrong cookie jar when we discovered Congressman Moran and Senator Larimer imprisoned on a Soviet vessel.”

“They can wait until I search the Chalmette for Loren.”

“My job. You go to the capital while I go to Miami and play customs inspector. It’s all been arranged.”

Pacified to a small degree, Pitt relaxed on the bed. “What about Moran?”

“He couldn’t wait to cut out,” Giordino said angrily. “He demanded the Navy drop everything and fly him home the minute he was brought ashore. I had a minor confrontation with him in the hospital corridor after his routine examination. Came within a millimeter of cramming his hook nose down his gullet. The bastard didn’t demonstrate the slightest concern about Loren, and he seemed downright delighted when I told him of Larimer’s death.”

“He has a talent for deserting those who help him,” Pitt said disgustedly.

An orderly rolled in a wheelchair and together with Giordino eased Pitt into it. A groan escaped his lips as a piercing pain ripped through his chest.

“You’re leaving against my express wishes,” said the doctor. “I want that understood. There is no guarantee you won’t have complications if you overtax yourself.”

“I release you from all responsibility, Doc,” Pitt said, smiling. “I won’t tell a soul I was your patient. Your medical reputation is secure.”

Giordino laid a pile of Navy-issue clothing and a small paper sack in Pitt’s lap. “Here’s some presentable clothes and the stuff from your pockets. You can dress on the plane to save time.”

Pitt opened the sack and fingered a vinyl pouch inside. Satisfied the contents were secure and dry, he looked up at Giordino and shook hands. “Good hunting, friend.”

Giordino patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll find her. You go to Washington and give ‘em hell.”

No one could have suffered from a Rip Van Winkle syndrome and awakened more surprised than Alan Moran. He remembered going to sleep on the presidential yacht almost two weeks earlier, and his next conscious sensation was being dragged into a limousine somewhere in the river country of South Carolina. The imprisonment and escape from the burning Russian cruise ship seemed a distorted blur. Only when he returned to Washington and found both Congress and the Supreme Court evicted from their hallowed halls did he come back on track and retrieve his mantle of political power.

With the government in emotional and political shambles, he saw his chance to fulfill his deep, unfathomable ambition to become President. Not having the popular support to take the office by election, he was determined now to grab it by default. With Margolin missing, Larimer out of the way, and the President laid open for impeachment, there was little to stop him.

Moran held court in the middle of Jackson Square across Pe

“Can you tell us where you’ve been the last two weeks?” asked Ray Marsh of the New York Times.

“Be glad to,” Moran replied gracefully. “Senate Majority Leader Marcus Larimer and I went on a fishing holiday in the Caribbean, partly to try our luck at snagging a record marlin, mostly to discuss the issues facing our great nation.”

“Initial reports state that Senator Larimer died during the Leonid Andreyev tragedy.”

“I’m deeply saddened to say that is true,” Moran said, abruptly becoming solemn. “The senator and I were trolling only five or six miles away from the Russian cruise ship when we heard and observed an explosion that covered her in fire and smoke. We immediately ordered our skipper to change course for the disaster area. When we arrived, the Leonid Andreyev was ablaze from stem to stern. Hundreds of frightened passengers were tumbling into the sea, many with their clothes in flames.”

Moran paused for effect and then enunciated in a vivid descriptive tone. “I leaped into the water, followed by the senator, to help those who were badly injured or unable to swim. We struggled for what seemed like hours, keeping women and children afloat until we could lift them into our fishing boat. I lost track of Senator Larimer. When I looked for him, he was floating facedown, an apparent victim of a heart attack due to overexertion. You can quote me as saying he died a real hero.”