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  "I find that surprising. The Cubans detest the Russians. Their viewpoints on life don't mix at all."

  "Certainly Cuba never intended to become a Kremlin pawn, but since the revolution thousands of Cuban students have studied in Russian universities. Many, rather than return home and work in a job dictated by the state, a job they might hate or which could lead to a dead end, were swayed by subtle Russian offerings of prestige and money. The canny ones, who placed their future above patriotism, secretly renounced Castro and swore allegiance to the Soviet Union. You have to give the Russians credit. They kept their promises. Using their influence over the Cuban government, they wove their new subjects into positions of power."

  "Castro is still revered by the Cuban people," said Sandecker. "I can't see how they could stand by and watch him totally subjugated by Moscow."

  The President's expression turned grave. "The very real threat is that the Russians will assassinate the Castro brothers and throw the blame on the CIA. Easy enough to do since the agency is known to have made several attempts on his life back in the sixties."

  "And the Kremlin walks through the open door and installs a puppet government."

  The President nodded. "Which brings us to his proposed U.S.-Cuban pact. Castro doesn't want to scare the Russians into making their move before we've agreed to back his play to boot them out of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, after making the opening gambit, he has stonewalled all replies from myself and Doug Oates."

  "Sounds like the old stick-and-carrot routine to whet your appetite."

  "The way I see it too."

  "So where do the LeBarons fit into all this?"

  "They fell into it," the President said with a touch of irony. "You know the story. Raymond LeBaron flew off in his antique blimp in search of a treasure ship. Actually, he had another target in mind, but that needn't concern NUMA or you personally. As fate would have it, Raul Castro was on an inspection tour of the island's defense command complex outside of Havana when LeBaron was spotted by their offshore detection systems. The thought struck him that the contact might prove useful. So he ordered his guard forces to intercept the blimp and escort it to an airfield near the city of Cardenas."

  "I can guess the rest," said Sandecker. "The Cubans reinflated the blimp, hid an envoy on board, who was carrying the U.S.-Cuban document, and sent it aloft, figuring prevailing winds would nudge it toward the States."

  "You're close," the President acknowledged, smiling. "But they didn't take any chances on fickle winds. A close friend of Fidel's and a pilot sneaked on board with the document. They flew the blimp to Miami, where they jumped into the water a few miles offshore and were picked up by a waiting yacht."

  "I'd be curious to learn where the three bodies in the control cabin came from," Sandecker probed.

  "A melodramatic display by Castro to prove his good intentions that I haven't got time to go into."

  "The Russians haven't become suspicious?"

  "Not yet. Their superior attitude over the Cubans prevents them from seeing anything resembling Latin ingenuity."

  "So Raymond LeBaron is alive and well somewhere in Cuba."

  The President made an open gesture with his hands. "I can only assume that's his situation. CIA sources report that Soviet intelligence demanded to interrogate LeBaron. The Cubans obliged and LeBaron hasn't been seen since."

  "Aren't you going to even try to negotiate LeBaron's release?" asked Sandecker.

  "The situation is delicate as it is without throwing him on the bargaining table. When we can nail down and sign the U.S.-Cuban pact, I have no doubt that Castro will take custody of LeBaron from the Russians and turn him over to us."

  The President paused and stared at the mantel clock. "I'm late for a conference with my budget people." He stood up and started for the door. Then he turned to Sandecker. "I'll wrap this up quickly. Jessie LeBaron was briefed on the situation and memorized our response to Castro. The plan was to have the blimp return with a LeBaron on board. A signal to Castro that my reply was being sent in the same way his proposal was sent out. Something went wrong. You passed Jess Simmons on your way in. He briefed me on the photos taken by our aerial reconnaissance. Instead of stopping the blimp and escorting it to Cardenas, the Cuban patrol helicopter fired upon it. Then for some unexplained reason the helicopter exploded, and they both crashed into the sea. You must realize, Admiral, I couldn't send rescue forces because of the sensitive nature of the mission. I'm truly sorry about Pitt. I owed him a debt I could never repay. We can only pray that he, Jessie LeBaron, and your other friends somehow survived."

  "Nobody could survive a crash in the path of hurricane," Sandecker said caustically. "You'll have to pardon me, Mr. President, but even Mickey Mouse could have put together a better operation."

  A pained expression lined the President's face. He started to say something, thought better of it, and pulled open the door. "I'm sorry, Admiral, I'm late for the conference."

  The President spoke no more. He walked from the Oval Office and left Sandecker standing confused and alone.

  <<27>>

  The worst of hurricane Little Eva skirted the island and turned northeast into the Gulf of Mexico. The winds dropped off to forty miles an hour, but another two days would pass before they were replaced by the gentle trade winds from the south.

  Cayo Santa Maria seemed empty of any life, animal or human. Ten years earlier, in a moment of generous comradeship, Fidel Castro had deeded the island over to his Communist allies as a gesture of goodwill. He then slapped the face of the White House by proclaiming it as a territory of Russia.

  The natives were quietly but forcefully relocated onto the mainland, and engineering units of the GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye, or Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet General Staff), the military arm of the KGB, moved in and began building a highly secret underground installation. Working in stages and only under cover of darkness, the complex slowly took shape beneath the sand and palm trees. CIA spy planes monitored the island, but intelligence analysis failed to detect any defense installations or heavy shipment of supplies by sea or air. Enhanced photo examination showed little except a few eroding roads that seemingly went nowhere. Only as a matter of routine was the island studied, but nothing ever turned up that indicated a threat to United States security.

  Somewhere beneath the wind-beaten island, Pitt awoke in a small sterile room on a bed with a goosedown mattress under a fluorescent light that blazed continuously. He could not recall if he had ever slept in a feather bed, but he found it most comfortable and made a mental note to look around for one, if and when he ever got back to Washington.

  Apart from bruises, sore joints, and a slight throb in his head he felt reasonably fit. He lay there and stared at the gray-painted ceiling, recalling the night before-- Jessie's discovery of her husband, the guards escorting Pitt, Giordino, and Gunn to an infirmary, where a female Russian doctor, who was built like a bawling pin, tended to their injuries, a meal of mutton stew in a mess hall that Pitt rated six points below an east Texas truck stop, and finally being locked in a room with a toilet and washbasin, a bed, and a narrow wooden wardrobe.

  Slipping his hands under the sheet, he explored his body. Except for several yards of tape and gauze, he was naked. He marveled at the homely doctor's fetish for bandages. He swung his bare feet onto the concrete floor and sat there, pondering his next move. A signal from his bladder reminded him he was still human, so he moved over to the commode and wished he had a cup of coffee. They, whoever they were, had left him his Doxa watch. The dial read 11:55. Since he had never slept more than nine hours in his life, he rightly assumed that it was the following morning.

  A minute later he leaned over the basin and splashed cold water on his face. The single towel was coarse and hardly absorbed the moisture. He went over to the wardrobe, pulled it open, and found a khaki shirt and pants on a hanger and a pair of sandals. Before he put them on he removed several bandages over wounds that were
already beginning to scab, and flexed the newfound freedom of movement. After he dressed, he tried the heavy iron door. The latch was still locked, so he pounded on the thick metal panel, causing a hollow boom to reverberate around the concrete walls.

  A boy who looked no older than nineteen and wearing Soviet army fatigues opened the door and stood back, aiming a machine pistol, no larger than an ordinary household hammer, at Pitt's midsection. He motioned down a long hall to the left, and Pitt obliged. They passed several other iron doors, and Pitt wondered if Gunn and Giordino were behind any of them.

  They stopped at an elevator whose doors were held open by another guard. They entered and Pitt felt the slight pressure against his feet as the car rose. He glanced at the indicator above the door and noticed that it showed lights for five levels. A good-sized layout, he thought. The elevator came to a stop and the automatic doors glided open.

  Pitt and his guard stepped out into a carpeted room with a vaulted ceiling. The two side walls held shelves stacked with hundreds of books. Most of the books were in English and many of them were by current best selling American authors. A vast map of North America covered the entire far wall. The room looked to Pitt to be a private study. There was a big, antique carved desk whose marble top was strewn with current issues of the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Stacked atop tables on each side of the doorway were piles of technical magazines, including Computer Technology, Science Digest, and the Air Force Journal. The carpet was burgundy red with six green leather chairs spaced evenly about its thick pile.

  Maintaining his silence, the guard reentered the elevator and left Pitt standing alone in the empty room.

  Must be time to observe the monkey, he mused. Pitt didn't bother to probe the walls for the lens to the video camera. There was little doubt in his mind that it was concealed in the room somewhere, recording his actions. He decided to try for a reaction. He swayed drunkenly for a moment, rolled his eyes upward, and then crumpled onto the carpet.

  Within fifteen seconds a hidden door, whose edges perfectly matched latitude and longitude lines of the giant wall map, swung open and a short, trim man in an elegantly tailored Soviet military uniform walked into the room. He knelt down and peered into Pitt's half-open eyes.

  "Can you hear me?" he asked in English.

  "Yes," Pitt mumbled.

  The Russian went over to a table and tilted a crystal decanter over a matching glass. He returned and lifted Pitt's head.

  "Drink this," he ordered.

  "What is it?"

  "Courvoisier cognac with a sharp, biting taste," the Russian officer answered in a flawless American accent. "Good for what ails you."

  "I prefer a richer, smoother Remy Martin," said Pitt, holding up the glass. "Cheers."

  He sipped the cognac until it was gone, then rose lightly to his feet, found a chair, and sat down.

  The officer smiled with amusement. "You seem to have made a quick recovery, Mr. . ."

  "Snodgrass, Elmer Snodgrass, from Moline, Illinois."

  "A nice Midwestern touch," the Russian said, coming around and sitting behind the desk. "I am Peter Velikov."

  "General Velikov, if my memory of Russian military insignia is correct."

  "Quite correct," Velikov acknowledged. "Would you care for another cognac?"

  Pitt shook his head and studied the man across the desk. He judged Velikov to be no taller than five foot seven, weighing about a hundred and thirty pounds, and somewhere in his late forties. There was a comfortable friendliness about him, and yet Pitt sensed an underlying coldness. His hair was short and black with only a touch of gray at the sideburns and receding around a peak above the forehead. His eyes were as blue as an alpine lake, and the light-skinned face seemed sculptured more by classic Roman influence than Slavic. Dress him in a toga and set a wreath on his head, Pitt imagined, and Velikov could have posed for a marble bust of Julius Caesar.

  "I hope you don't mind if I ask you a few questions," said Velikov politely.

  "Not at all. I have no pressing engagements for the rest of the day. My time is yours."

  A look of ice glinted in Velikov's eyes for an instant and then quickly faded. "Suppose you tell me how you came to be on Cayo Santa Maria."

  Pitt held out his hands in a helpless gesture. "No sense in wasting your time. I might as well make a clean breast of it. I'm president of the Central Intelligence Agency. My board of directors and I thought it would be a great promotional idea to charter a blimp and drop redeemable coupons for toilet paper over the length of Cuba. I'm told there's an acute shortage down here. Unfortunately, the Cubans didn't agree with our marketing strategy and shot us down."

  General Velikov gave Pitt a tolerant but irritated look. He perched a pair of reading glasses on his nose and opened a file on his desk.

  "I see by your dossier, Mr. Pitt-- Dirk Pitt, if I read it right-- that your character profile mentions a drift toward dry wit."

  "Does it also tell you I'm a pathological liar?"

  "No, but it seems you have a most fascinating history. A pity you aren't on our side."

  "Come now, General, what future could a nonconformist possibly have in Moscow?"

  "A short one, I'm afraid."

  "I compliment your honesty."

  "Why not tell me the truth?"

  "Only if you're willing to believe it."

  "You don't think I can?"

  "Not if you adhere to the Communist mania of seeing a CIA plot under every rock."

  "Seems you have a high disregard for the Soviet Union."

  "Name one thing you people have ever done in the last seventy years to earn a humanity award. What is baffling as hell is why the Russians have never wised up to the fact they're the laughing stock of the world. Your empire is history's most pathetic joke. The twenty-first century is just around the corner and your government operates as though it never advanced past the nineteen-thirties."

  Velikov didn't bat an eyelid, but Pitt detected a slight redness in his face. It was clear the general wasn't used to being lectured by a man he looked down upon as an enemy of the state. His eyes examined Pitt with the unmistakable gaze of a judge who was weighing a convicted murderer's life in the balance. Then his gaze turned speculative.

  "I'll see that your comments are passed on to the Politburo," he said dryly. "Now if you're through with the speech, Mr. Pitt, I'd be interested in hearing how you came to be here."

  Pitt nodded toward the table with the decanter. "I think I'd like that cognac now."

  "Help yourself."

  Pitt half filled his glass and returned to the chair. "What I'm about to tell you is the straight truth. I want you to understand I have no reason to lie. To the best of my knowledge I am not on any sort of intelligence mission for my government. Do you understand me so far, General?"

  "I do."

  "Is your hidden tape recorder running?"

  Velikov had the courtesy to nod. "It is."

  Pitt then related in detail his discovery of the runaway blimp, the meeting with Jessie LeBaron in Admiral Sandecker's office, the final flight of the Prosperteer, and finally the narrow escape from the hurricane, omitting any mention of Giordino's downing of the patrol helicopter or the dive on the Cyclops.

  Velikov did not look up when Pitt finished speaking. He sifted through the dossier without a flicker of change in his expression. The general acted as if his mind were light-years away and he hadn't heard a word.

  Pitt could play the game too. He took his cognac glass and rose from his chair. Picking up a copy of the Washington Post, he noted with mild surprise that the masthead carried that day's date.

  "You must have an efficient courier system," he said.

  "Sorry?"

  "Your newspapers are only a few hours old."

  "Five hours, to be exact."

  The cognac fairly glowed on Pitt's empty stomach. The awkward consequences of his predicament mellowed after his third drink. He went on the attack.<
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  "Why are you holding Raymond LeBaron?" he asked.

  "At the moment he is a house guest."

  "That doesn't explain why his existence has been kept quiet for two weeks."

  "I don't have to explain anything to you, Mr. Pitt."

  "How is it LeBaron receives gourmet dinners in formal dress, while my friends and I are forced to eat and dress like common prisoners."

  "Because that is precisely what you all are, Mr. Pitt, common prisoners. Mr. LeBaron is a very wealthy and powerful man whose dialogue is most enlightening. You, on the other hand, are merely an inconvenience. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

  "It doesn't satisfy a thing," Pitt said, yawning.

  "How did you destroy the patrol helicopter?" Velikov asked suddenly.

  "We threw our shoes at it," Pitt fired back testily. "What did you expect from four civilians, one of whom was a woman, flying in a forty-year-old gas bag?"

  "Helicopters don't blow up in midair for no reason."

  "Maybe it was struck by lightning."

  "Well, then, Mr. Pitt, if you were on a simple search mission to locate a clue to Mr. LeBaron's disappearance and hunt for treasure, how do you explain the report from the captain of the patrol boat, who stated that the blimp's control car was so shattered by shellfire that no one could have survived, and that a streak of light issued from the blimp an instant before the helicopter exploded, and that a thorough search over the crash site showed no signs of survivors? Yet you all appear like magic on this island in the middle of a hurricane, when the security patrols were taking shelter from the winds. Most opportune, wouldn't you say?"

  "How do you read it?"

  "The blimp was either remote controlled or another crew was killed by the gunners on board the helicopter. You and Mrs. LeBaron were brought close to shore by submarine, but during the landing everyone was thrown onto the rocks and injured."