Deep Six

His ears regained a partial sense of hearing and picked up a strange thumping sound, which Pitt wrote off as blood pounding in his head. The sea rose above his feet now, and the barge shuddered; it was about to go under.

A nightmare world closed in on him. A black shape loomed above, and then his hand reached out and clasped another hand.

Accounting

The Liftonic QW-607

75

House Speaker Alan Moran, his face wreathed in a confident smile, circulated around the East Room of the White House conversing with his aides and i

He greeted a small group of party leaders and then turned and excused himself as Secretary of State Douglas Oates and Defense Secretary Jesse Simmons entered the room. Moran came over and held out his hand, which Oates ignored.

Moran shrugged off the snub. He could well afford to. “Well, it seems you’re not of a mind to praise Caesar, but you haven’t a prayer of burying him either.”

“You’ve just reminded me of an old gangster movie I saw when I was a boy,” Oates said icily. “The title fits you perfectly.”

“Oh, really? What movie was that?”

“Little Caesar.”

Moran’s smile turned into a sinister glare. “Have you come with your resignation?”

Oates pulled an envelope partway out of his inside breast pocket. “I have it right here.”

“Keep it!” Moran snarled. “I won’t give you the satisfaction of bowing out gracefully. Ten minutes after I take the oath I’m holding a press conference. Besides assuring the nation of a smooth succession, I intend to a

“We expected no less. Integrity was never one of your character traits.”

“There was no conspiracy and you know it,” Simmons said angrily. “The President was the victim of a Soviet plot to control the White House.”

“No matter,” Moran replied nastily. “By the time the truth comes out, the damage to your precious reputations will have been done. You’ll never work in Washington again.”

Before Oates and Simmons could retort, an aide rushed up and spoke softly in Moran’s ear. He dismissed his enemies with a snide look and turned away. Then he stepped to the center of the room and raised his hands for silence.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he a

As if on cue, Chief Justice Nelson O’Brien rose from a chair, smoothed his black robes and cleared his throat. Everyone crowded around Moran as his secretary held what was dubiously touted as his family Bible.

Just then Sam Emmett and Dan Fawcett came through the doorway and paused. Then they spied Oates and Simmons and approached.

“Any word?” Oates asked anxiously.

Emmett shook his head. “None. General Metcalf ordered a communications blackout. I haven’t been able to reach him at the Pentagon to find out why.”

“Then it’s all over.”

No one replied as they all turned in unison and stood in powerless frustration as Moran raised his right hand to take the oath of office as President, his left hand on the Bible.

“Repeat after me,” Chief Justice O’Brien intoned like a drumroll. “I, Alan Robert Moran, do solemnly swear…”

“… that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States,” O’Brien droned on.

Suddenly the room behind Oates went quiet. The prompting of the oath by the Chief Justice went unanswered by Moran. Curious, Oates turned around and looked at the crowd. They were all staring in frozen wonder at Vice President Vincent Margolin, who walked through the doorway preceded by Oscar Lucas and flanked by General Metcalf and Admiral Sandecker.

Moran’s upraised arm slowly fell and his face turned ashen. The silence smothered the room like an insulating cloud as Margolin stepped up to the Chief Justice, the stu

“Thank you for the rehearsal,” he said warmly. “But I think I can take over from here.”

76

SAL CASIO WAS WAITING in the vast lobby of the World Trade Center when Pitt came slowly through the entrance. Casio looked at him in stark appraisal. He couldn’t remember when he’d seen any man so near the edge of physical collapse.

Pitt moved with the tired shuffle of a man who had endured too much. He wore a borrowed foul-weather jacket two sizes too small. His right arm hung slack while his left was pressed against his chest, as if holding it together, an^l his face was etched in a strange blending of suffering and triumph. The eyes burned with a sinister glow that Casio recognized as the fires of revenge.

“I’m glad you could make it,” Casio said without referring to Pitt’s haggard appearance.

“It’s your show,” said Pitt. “I’m only along for the ride.”

“Only fitting and proper we be together at the finish.”

“I appreciate the courtesy. Thank you.”

Casio turned and guided Pitt over to a private elevator. Pulling a small push-button transmitter from his pocket, he punched the correct code and the doors opened. Inside was an unconscious guard who was bound with laundry cord. Casio stepped over him and opened a polished brass door to a circuit panel with the words LIFTONIC ELEVATOR QW-607 engraved on it. He made an adjustment in the settings and then pushed the button that read “100.”

The elevator rose like a rocket and Pitt’s ears popped three times before it slowed and the doors finally opened onto the richly furnished anteroom of Bougainville Maritime Lines Inc.

Before he stepped out, Casio paused and repro-grammed the elevator circuitry with his transmitter. Then he turned and stepped out onto the thick carpet.

“We’re here to speak with Min Koryo,” Casio a

The woman eyed them suspiciously, particularly Pitt, and opened a leather-bound journal. “I see nothing in Madame Bougainville’s schedule that shows any appointments this evening.”

Casio’s face furrowed into his best hurt look. “Are you sure?” he asked, leaning over the desk and peering at the appointment book.

She pointed at the blank page. “Nothing is written—”

Casio chopped her across the nape of the neck with the edge of his palm, and she fell forward, head and shoulders striking the desktop. Then he reached inside her blouse and extracted a vestpocket.25-caliber automatic pistol.

“Never know it to look at her,” he explained, “but she’s a security guard.”

Casio tossed the gun to Pitt and took off down a corridor hung with paintings of the Bougainville Maritime fleet. Pitt recognized the Pilottown, and his weary expression hardened. He followed the brawny private investigator up an intricately carved rosewood circular staircase to the living quarters above. At the top of the landing Casio met another ravishing Asian woman who was leaving a bathroom. She was wearing silk lounging pajamas with a kimono top.

Her eyes widened and in a lightning reflex she lashed out with one foot at Casio’s groin. He anticipated the thrust and shifted his weight ever so slightly, catching the blow on the side of his thigh. Then she flashed into the classic judo position and buried several rapid cuts at his head.

She would have done more damage to an oak tree. Casio shook off her attack, crouched and sprung like an offensive back coming off the line. She spun to her left in an impressive display of feline grace but was knocked off balance by his shoulder. Then Casio straightened and smashed through her defense with a vicious left hook that nearly tore off her head. Her feet left the floor and she flew into a five-foot-high Sung Dynasty vase, breaking it into dust.