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  "Granted," Pitt allowed. "But suppose they cut off seven hundred miles?"

  "How?" inquired Giordino, his voice a combination of doubt and sarcasm. "By installing wheels and driving it cross-country?"

  "No joke," Pitt said seriously. "By towing it through the recently opened Florida Cross State Canal from Jacksonville on the Atlantic to Crystal River on the Gulf of Mexico, shortcutting the entire southern half of the state."

  The revelation sparked Giordino. He peered at the chart again, studying the scale. Then, using his thumb and forefinger as a pair of diviners, he roughly measured the reduced distance between Charleston and New Orleans. When he finally turned and looked at Pitt, he wore a sheepish smile.

  "It works." Then the smile quickly faded. "So what does it prove?"

  "The Bougainvilles must have a heavily guarded dock facility and terminal where they unload their illegal cargoes. It probably sits on the banks of the river somewhere between New Orleans and the entrance to the gulf."

  "The Mississippi Delta?" Giordino showed his puzzlement.

  "How'd you pull that little number out of the hat?"

  "Take a look," Pitt said, pointing to the list of ships on the blackboard and then reading them off. "The Pilottown, Belle Chasse, Buras, Venice, Boothville, Chalmette-all ships under foreign registry but at one time owned by Bougainville Maritime."

  "I fail to make the connection."

  "Take another look at the chart. Every one of those ships is named after a town along the river delta."

  "A symbolic cipher?"

  "The only mistake the Bougainvilles ever let slip, using a code to designate their area of covert operations."

  Giordino peered closer. "By God, it fits like a girl in tight shorts."

  Pitt rapped the chart with his knuckles. "I'll bet my lsottaFraschini against your Bronco that's where we'll find Loren."

  "You're on."

  "Run over to the NUMA air terminal and sign out a Lear jet. I'll contact the admiral and explain why we're flying to New Orleans."

  Giordino was already heading toward the door. "I'll have the plane checked out and ready for takeoff when you get there," he called over his shoulder.

  Pitt hurried up the stairs to his apartment and threw some clothes in an overnight bag. He opened a gun cabinet and took out an old Colt Thompson submachine gun, serial number 8545, and two loaded drums of .45-caliber cartridges and lain them in a violin case, Then he picked up the phone and called Sandecker's office.

  He identified himself to Sandecker's private secretary and was put through. "Admiral?"

  "Dirk?"

  "I think I've got the barge area fixed."

  "Where?"

  "The Mississippi River Delta. Al and I are leaving for there now."

  "What makes you think it's in the delta?"

  "Half guess, half deduction, but it's the best lead we've got."

  Sandecker hesitated before replying. "You'd better hold up," he said quietly.

  "Hold up? What are you talking about?"

  "Alan Moran is demanding the search be called off."

  Pitt was stunned. "What in hell for?"

  "He says it's a waste of time and taxpayers' money to continue, because Vince Margolin is dead."

  "Moran is full of crap."

  "He has the clothes Margolin was wearing the night they all disappeared to back up his claim."

  "We still have Loren to think about."

  "Moran says she's dead too."

  Pitt felt like he was sinking in quicksand. "He's a damned liar!"

  "Maybe so, but if he's right about Margolin, you're defaming the next President of the United States."

  "The day that little creep takes the oath is the day I turn in my citizenship."

  "You probably won't be alone," Sandecker said sourly. "But your personal feelings don't alter the situation."

  Pitt stood unbudging. "I'll call you from Louisiana."

  "I was hoping you'd say that. Stay in close contact. I'll do everything I can to help from this end."

  "Thanks, you old fraud."

  "Get your ass in gear and tell Giordino to stop swiping my cigars."

  Pitt grinned and hung up. He finished packing and hurried from the hangar. Three minutes after he drove off, his phone began to ring, Two hundred miles away an ashen-faced Sal Casio despair@gly waited in vain for an answer.

  TEN MINUTES AFTER TWELVE NOON, Alan Moran walked through the main corridor of the Capitol, down a narrow staircase and opened the door to an out-of-the-way office he kept for privacy.

  Most men in his position were constantly surrounded by a hive of aides, but Moran preferred to travel a solitary trail, unhindered by inane conversation.

  He always wore the wary look of an antelope scanning the African plain for predators. He had the expressionless eyes of a man whose only love was power, power attained by whatever means, at whatever cost. To achieve his prestigious position in Congress, Moran had carefully nurtured a billboard image. In his public life he oozed a religious fervor, the personification of the friendly shy man with a warm sense of humor, the appeal of the neighbor next door, ever ready to lend his lawn mower, and the past of a man born underprivileged, self-made.

  His private life couldn't have been more at odds. He was a closet atheist who looked on his constituents and the general public as ignorant rabble whose chronic complaints led to an open license to twist and control for his own advantage. Never married, with no close friends, he lived frugally like a penitent monk in a small rented apartment. Every dollar over and above subsistence level went into his secret corporation in Chicago, where it was anded to funds obtained through illegal contributions, bribes and other corrupt investments.

  Then it was spread and sown to increase his power base until there were few men and women with top positions in business and government who weren't tied to his coattails by political favors and influence.

  Douglas Oates, Sam Emmett, Martin Brogan, Alan Mercier and Jesse Simmons, who was recently released from house arrest, were seated in Moran's office as he entered. They all rose as he took his place behind a desk. There was an air of smugness about him that was obvious to his visitors. He had summoned them to his private territory and they had no choice but to respond.

  " Thank you for meeting with me, gentlemen," he said with a false smile. "I assume you know the purpose."

  " To discuss your possible succession to the Presidency," Oates replied.

  "There is no possible about it," Moran rejoined waspishly. "The Senate is scheduled to begin the trial at seven o'clock this evening.

  As next in line to the executive office, I feel it is my sworn duty to take the oath immediately afterward and assume the responsibility for healing the wounds caused by the President's harmful delusions."

  "Aren't you jumping the gun?" asked Simmons.

  "Not if it means stopping the President from any more outrageous actions."

  Oates looked dubious. "Some people might interpret your undue reaction, at least until Vince Margolin is proven dead, as an improper attempt to usurp power, especially when considering your part in motivating the President's ouster.

  Moran glared at Oates and shifted his stare to Emmett. "You have the Vice President's clothing that was found in the river."

  "My FBI lab has identified the clothing as belonging to Margolin," acknowledged Emmett. "But it shows no indication of being immersed in water for two weeks."

  "Most likely it washed onshore and dried out."

  "You say the fisherman who came to your office with the evidence stated he snagged it in the middle of the Potomac River."

  "You're the Director of the FBI," snapped Moran angrily. "You figure it out. I'm not on trial here."

  "Perhaps it would be in the best interests of everyone present," Oates said quietly, "to continue the search for Margolin."

  "I'm in total agreement," said Brogan. "We can't write him off until we find his body."

  "Questions will most certainly arise," an
ded Mercier. "For example, how did he die?"

  "Obviously he drowned," Moran answered. 'Trobably when the Eagle sank."

  "Also," Mercier continued, "you never satisfactorily explained when and how you and Marcus Larimer disembarked from the Eagle and traveled to an as-yet-undisclosed resort for your Caribbean fishing trip."

  "I'll be happy to answer any questions before a congressional investigating committee," said Moran. "Certainly not here and now in front of people who are in opposition to me."

  "You must understand, in spite of his mistakes, our loyalties lie with the President," said Oates.

  "I don't doubt it for a minute," said Moran. "That's why I summoned you here this morning. Ten minutes after the Senate votes, I will be sworn in as President. My first official act will be to announce either your resignations or firings; you have your choice. As of midnight tonight, none of you will be working for the United States government."

  The narrow paved road snaked through the high hills that dropped steeply into the Black Sea. In the rear seat of a Cadillac Seville stretch limousine, Vladimir Polevoi sat reading the latest report from Aleksei Lugovoy. Every once in a while he looked up and gazed at the dawn sun creeping past the horizon.

  The limousine turned heads wherever it rolled. Custom built with inlain wood cabinets, color TV, electric diviner, liquor bar and overhead stereo console, it had been ordered purchased by Polevoi and transported to Moscow under the guise of studying its mechanical technology. Shortly after its arrival he'd commandered it as his own.

  The long car climbed around the forested edge of a craggy cliff until the road ended at a huge wooden door hinged to a high brick wall.

  A uniformed officer saluted the KGB chief and pressed a switch. The door silently swung open to a vast garden that blazed with flowers, and the car was driven in and parked beside a spreading one-story house, constructed in a Western contemporary design.

  Polevoi walked up circular stone steps and entered a foyer, where he was greeted by President Antonov's secretary and escorted to a table and chairs on a terrace overlooking the sea.

  After a few moments Antonov appeared, followed by a pretty servant girl carrying a huge plate of smoked salmon, caviar and iced vodka.

  Antonov seemed in a happy mood and casually sat on the iron railing around the terrace.

  "You have a beautiful new dacha," said Polevoi.

  "Thank you. I had it designed by a firm of French architects.

  They didn't charge me a ruble. It won't pass critical inspection by a state building committee, of course. Too bourgeois. But what the hell. Times are changing." Then he switched the subject abruptly.

  "What news of events in Washington?"

  "The President will be removed from office," answered Polevoi.

  "When?"

  "By this time tomorrow."

  "No doubt of this."

  "None."

  Antonov picked up his vodka glass and emptied it, and the girl immediately refilled it. Polevoi suspected the girl did more than simply pour vodka for the head of the Soviet Union.

  "did we miscalculate, Vladimir?" Antonov asked. "did we expect to accomplish too much too quickly?"

  "Nobody can second-guess the Americans. They don't behave in predictable ways."

  "Who will be the new President?"

  "Alan Moran, Speaker of the House of Representatives."

  "Can we work with him?"

  "My sources say he has a devious mind, but can be swayed."

  Antonov stared at a tiny fishing boat far below on the water.

  "If given the choice, I'd prefer Moran over Vice President Margolin."

  "Most definitely," Polevoi agreed. "Margolin is a dedicated enemy of our Communist society, and an adamant believer in expanding the American military machine beyond our own."

  "Anything our people can do, discreetly, of course, to assist Moran into the White House?"

  Polevoi shook his head. "Very little worth the risk of exposure and adverse propaganda."

  "Where is Margolin?"

  "Still in the hands of the Bougainvilles."

  "Any chance that that old Oriental bitch will release him in time to cut out Moran?"

  Polevoi shrugged helplessly. "Who can predict her schemes with any accuracy?"

  "If you were her, Vladimir, what would you do?" Polevoi paused thoughtfully, then said, "I'd strike a deal with Moran to dispose of Margolin."

  "Has Moran the guts to accept?"

  "If one man who was being held prisoner in an extremely vulnerable situation stood between you and leadership of a superpower, how would you play it?"

  Antonov broke into a loud laugh that frightened a nearby bird into flight. "You read through me like glass, old friend. I see your point. I wouldn't hesitate to remove him."

  "The American news media report that Moran is claiming Margolin committed suicine by drowning."

  "So your theory is on firm ground," said Antonov. "Maybe the old Steel Lotus will end up doing us a favor after all."

  " At least our deal with her didn't cost anything."

  "Speaking of cost, what is the status of the gold?"

  "Admiral Borchavski has begun salvage operations. He expects to raise every bar within three weeks."

  "That's good news," said Antonov. "And what of Dr. Lugovoy?

  Can he continue his project after the President is cast from office?"

  "He can," Polevoi replied. "Locked inside the President's head is a vast treasure store of United States secrets. Lugovoy has yet to tap it."

  "Then keep the project going. provide Lugovoy with an extensive list of delicate political and military subjects we wish explored. All American leaders who leave office are consulted for their experience, regardless of inept handling of their administrations. The capitalist masses have short memories. The knowledge the President now possesses and has yet to learn from briefings by his successors can be of great benefit to us in the future. This time we shall practice patience and probe slowly. The President's brain may turn out to be a goose that lays golden intelligence eggs for decades to come."

  Polevoi raised his glass. " A toast to the best secret agent we ever recruited."

  Antonov smiled. "Long may he produce."

  Across half a world, Raymond Edgely sat at a console and read the data that unrolled from a paper recorder. He raised his glasses and rubbed his reddened eyes. Despite his seeming tiredness, there was a tightly contained nervous energy about him. His competitive juices were stirred. The opportunity to beat his most esteemed counterpart in a game of psychological intrigue drove him beyond any thought of sleep.

  Dr. Harry Greenberg, a respected psychiatric researcher in his own right, lit a curved-stem clay pipe. After stoking the stained yellow bowl to life, he pointed the mouthpiece at the recorder.

  "No sense in waiting any longer, Ray. I'm satisfied we have the necessary data to make the switch."

  "I hate to rush in before I'm certain we can fool Aleksei."

  "Do it," Greenberg urged. "Stop screwing around and go for it."

  Edgely looked around at his ten-member team of psychologists.

  They stared back at him expectantly. Then he nodded. "Okay, everybody stand by to transfer thought communication from the President's implant to our central computer."

  Greenberg walked around the room, briefly talking to everyone, double-checking the procedures. Three sat at the computer console, their hands poised over the buttons. The rest studied the display screens and monitored the data.

  palms on a handkerchief. GreenberL, stood sliahtly off to one side and behind him.

  "We don't want to break in during a thought pattern or in the middle of Lugovoy's instructions," Greenberg cautioned.

  "I'm aware of that," Edgely said without taking his eyes from the brainwave translator display. "Our computer transmission also has to match his heart rate and other life functions exactly" The programmer punched in the command and waited. They all waited, watching the empty screen that would
reveal success or failure. The minutes ticked by, nobody speaking, the only sounds coming from the soft hum of the electronic hardware as the computer poised for the precise millisecond to take command.

  Then suddenly the display screen read: "COMMUNICATIONS TRANSFER ACCOMPLISHED."