Night Probe!

by Clive Cussler

  He rummaged through any and all hand cases that remotely looked like they might contain the North American Treaty. The search went with frustrating slowness. He began to rush as the cold fingers of panic touched his mind. The flashlight was dimming, the batteries would not last but a few minutes longer.

  The seventh and last Pullman car, the one with the grisly occupants on the observation platform, bore the emblem of the American eagle on the door. Shaw cursed himself under his breath for not starting here.

  He laid his hand on the knob, turned it and passed inside. For an instant he was taken back by the opulence of the private coach. They certainly don't make them like they used to, he mused.

  A figure wearing a derby hat with a yellowed newspaper covering his features was sprawled in a red velvet revolving chair. Two of his companions sat folded over a mahogany dining table, their heads in their arms. One was dressed in what Shaw identified as an English-cut coat and trousers. The other wore a tropical worsted suit. It was the second who grabbed Shaw's interest. A withered hand clutched the grip of a small travel case.

  Almost as if he was afraid of waking its owner, Shaw painstakingly removed the case from under the rigid fingers.

  Suddenly he froze. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he caught an imperceptible movement. But it had to be an illusion. The wavering shadows on the walls were causing his inborn fears to run wild. If it was left to his imagination, the feeble light could make anything come alive.

  Then his heart stopped. A cardiologist would say that's impossible. But his heart stopped as he stared paralyzed at a reflection in the window.

  Behind him, the cadaver with the derby in the revolving chair was straightening to a stiff-backed position.

  Then the hideous thing lowered the newspaper from its face and smiled at Shaw.

  "You won't find what you're looking for in there," Dirk Pitt said, nodding at the travel bag.

  Shaw would never deny that he'd been rattled out of his wits. He sagged into a chair, waiting for his heart to pump again. He could see now that Pitt wore an old coat over a black wet suit. When he finally collected his senses, he said, "You have a disconcerting way of announcing your presence."

  Pitt added to the dim illumination by turning on his dive light and then nonchalantly turned his attention back to the old newspaper. "I always knew I was born eighty years too late. Here's a used Stutz Bearcat Speedster with low mileage for only six hundred and seventy-five dollars."

  Shaw had used up all his emotional reactions in the past twelve hours and was hardly in the mood for idle levity. "How did you manage to get in here?" he demanded more than asked.

  Pitt continued to study the classified automobile ads as he answered. "Swam in through the escape shaft.

  Ran out of air and almost drowned, Would have too if I hadn't lucked onto a pocket of stale air under an old submerged rock crusher. One more breath enabled me to break into a side tunnel."

  Shaw motioned around the coach. "What happened here?"

  Pitt pointed toward the two men at the table. "The man with the travel case is, or rather was, Richard Essex, undersecretary of state. The other man was Clement Massey. Beside Massey is a farewell letter to his wife. It tells the whole tragic story."

  Shaw picked up the letter and squinted at the faded ink. "So this fellow Massey here was a train robber."

  "Yes, he was after a gold shipment."

  "I saw it. Enough there to buy the Bank of England."

  "Massey's plan was incredibly complex for its time. He and his men flagged the train at an abandoned junction called Mondragon Hook. There they forced the engineer to switch the Manhattan Limited onto an old rail spur and into the quarry before any of the passengers realized what was happening."

  "Judging by this, he got more than he bargained for."

  "In more ways than one," Pitt agreed. "Overpowering the guards went off without a hitch. That part of the plan had been well rehearsed. But the four army security guards who were escorting Essex and the treaty to Washington came as a rude surprise. When the gunfire died away, the guards were all dead or wounded and Massey was minus three of his own men."

  "Apparently it didn't stop him," said Shaw, reading on.

  "No, he went ahead and faked the DeauvilleHudson bridge accident; then he returned to the quarry and set off black powder charges that sealed off the entrance. Now he had all the time in the world to unload the gold and flee out the escape exit."

  "How was that possible if it was filled with water?"

  "The best laid plans, etcetera," said Pitt. "The escape shaft runs on a higher level than the deep end of the quarry where the original flooding occurred. When Massey hijacked the Manhattan Limited, the way out was still dry. But after he blew the entrance, the shock waves opened underground fissures and water seepage gushed into the shaft and cut off any chance of escape, condemning everyone to a slow, horrifying death."

  "The poor devils," said Shaw. "Must have taken them weeks to perish from cold and starvation."

  "Strange how Massey and Essex sat down at the same table to die together," Pitt mused aloud. "I wonder what they found in common at the end?"

  Shaw set his flashlight so that its beam illuminated Pitt. "Tell me, Mr. Pitt. Did you come alone?"

  "Yes, my diving partner turned back."

  "I must assume you have the treaty."

  Pitt gazed at Shaw over the top of the paper, his green eyes inscrutable. "You assume correctly."

  Shaw slipped his hand from a pocket and aimed the .25 caliber Beretta. "Then I'm afraid you must give it to me."

  "So you can burn it?"

  Shaw nodded silently.

  "Sorry," Pitt said calmly.

  "I don't think you fully comprehend the situation."

  "It's obvious you have a gun."

  "And you haven't," Shaw said confidently.

  Pitt shrugged. "I admit it didn't occur to me to bring one."

  "The treaty, Mr. Pitt, if you please."

  "Finders keepers, Mr. Shaw."

  Shaw exhaled a breath in a long silent sigh. "I owe you my life, so it would be most inconsiderate of me to kill you. However, the treaty copy means far more to my country than the personal debt between us."

  "Your copy was destroyed on the Empress of Ireland," Pitt said slowly. "This one belongs to the United States."

  "Perhaps, but Canada belongs to Britain. And we don't intend to give it up."

  "The empire can't last forever."

  "India, Egypt and Burma, to name a few, were never ours to keep," said Shaw. "But Canada was settled and built by the British."

  "You forget your history, Shaw. The French were there first. Then the British. After you came the immigrants: the Germans, the Poles, the Scandinavians and even the Americans who moved north into the western provinces. Your government held the reins by maintaining a power structure run by people who were either born or educated in England. The same is true of your Commonwealth countries. Local government and large corporations may be managed by native employees, but the men who make the major decisions are sent out by London."

  "A system that has proven most efficient."

  "Geography and distance will eventually defeat that system," said Pitt. "No government can indefinitely rule another thousands of miles away."

  "If Canada leaves the Commonwealth, so might Australia or New Zealand, or even Scotland and Wales.

  I can think of nothing more distressing."

  "Who can say where national boundaries will lie a thousand years from now. Better yet, who the hell cares?"

  "I care, Mr. Pitt. Please hand over the treaty." Pitt did not respond, but turned his head, listening. The sounds of voices faintly echoed from one of the tunnels. "Your friends have followed me down the air vent," said Shaw. "Time has run out."

  "You kill me, and they'll kill you."

  "Forgive me, Mr. Pitt." The gun muzzle pointed directly between Pitt's eyes.

  A deafening, ringing clap shattered the silent glo
om of the cavern. Not the sharp, cracking report of a small-caliber Beretta, but rather the booming bark of a 7.63 Mauser automatic. Shaw's head snapped to one side and he hung limp in his chair.

  Pitt regarded the smoldering hole in the center of his newspaper for a moment, then rose to his feet, laid the Mauser on the table and eased Shaw to a prone position on the floor.

  He looked up as Giordino charged through the door like a bull in heat, an assault rifle held out in front of him. Giordino jerked to a halt and stared fascinated at the derby still perched on Pitt's head. Then he noticed Shaw. "Dead?"

  "My bullet creased his skull. The old guy is tough. After a nasty headache and couple of stitches, he'll probably come gunning for my hide."

  "Where'd you find a weapon?"

  "I borrowed it from him." Pitt motioned to the mummy that was Clement Massey.

  "The treaty?" Giordino asked anxiously.

  Pitt slipped a large piece of paper from between the pages of his newspaper and held it in front of the dive light.

  "The North American Treaty," he announced. "Except for a charred hole between paragraphs, it's as readable as the day it was signed.

  In an anteroom of the Canadian Senate chamber, the President of the United States nervously paced the carpet, his face betraying a deep sense of apprehensiveness. Alan Mercier and Harrison Moon entered and stood silently. "Any word?" asked the President.

  Mercier shook his head. "None."

  Moon looked strained and gaunt. "Admiral Sandecker's last message indicates that Pitt may have drowned inside the quarry."

  The President gripped Mercier's shoulder as if to take strength from him. "I had no right to expect the impossible."

  "The stakes were worth the gamble," said Mercier.

  The President could not shake the heavy dread in his gut. "Any excuse for failure has a hollow ring."

  Secretary of State Oates came through the door. "The Prime Minister and the Governor-General have arrived in the Senate chamber, Mr. President. The ministers are seated and waiting."

  The President's eyes were sick with defeat. "It seems time has run out, gentlemen, for us as well as for the United States."

  The 291-foot Peace Tower forming the center block of the Parliament building gradually grew larger through the windshield of a Scinletti VTOL aircraft as it banked toward the Ottawa airport. "If we don't get backed up by air traffic," said Jack Westler, "we should land in another five minutes."

  "Forget the airport," said Pitt. "Set us down on the lawn in front of Parliament."

  Westler's eyes widened. "I can't do that. I'd lose my pilot's license."

  "I'll make it easy for you." Pitt slipped the old Mauser pistol out of Richard Essex's travel case and screwed the business end into Westler's ear. "Now take us down."

  "Shoot . . . shoot me and we crash," the pilot stammered.

  "Who needs you?" Pitt grinned coldly. "I've got more hours in the air than you do."

  His facial color bleached brighter than a bedsheet, Westler began the descent.

  A crowd of tourists who were photographing a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman lifted their faces to the sky at the sound of the engines, and then parted like a reverse whirlpool. Pitt dropped the gun in his seat, shoved open the door and leaped out before the landing wheels settled in the turf.

  He ducked into the converging onlookers before the astonished Mountie could stop him. The door of the tall Peace Tower was jammed with cordoned lines of tourists waiting to catch a glimpse of the President. Pitt bulled his way through, ignoring the shouts of the guards.

  Once inside the memorial hall, he was momentarily confused about which direction to take. Two dozen cables snaked across the floor.

  He followed them at a dead run, knowing they would end at the video cameras taping the President's speech. He almost made it to the door of the Senate chamber before a Mountie the size of a small mountain, ablaze in scarlet ceremonial tunic, blocked his way.

  "Hold it right there, mister!"

  "Take Me to the President, quick!" Pitt demanded. As soon as he spoke he realized the words must have sounded absurd.

  The Mountie stared incredulously at Pitt's strange attire.

  Pitt had only had time to remove his wet-suit top and borrow Giordino's jacket-two sizes too short-before dashing to Westler's plane. He still wore the wet-suit bottoms and his feet were bare.

  Suddenly two more Mounties clutched Pitt from flanking sides.

  "Watch him boys. He might have a bomb in that satchel."

  "There's nothing in there but a piece of paper," said Pitt, maddened to the core.

  The tourists began to gather around them, clicking their cameras, curious to see what the disturbance was about.

  "We better get him out of here," said the Mountie, who snatched the travel bag.

  Pitt had never felt such despair. "For God's sake, listen to me-"

  He was in the process of being none too gently jerked away when a man in a conservative blue suit shouldered past the crowd. He gazed briefly at Pitt and turned to the Mountie.

  "Having a problem, constable?" he asked, displaying a U.S. Secret Service ID. "Some radical trying to break into the Senate chamber-" Pitt suddenly broke loose and lurched forward. "If you're Secret Service, help me." He was yelling now but didn't realize it.

  "Take it easy, pal," blue suit said, his hand snapping to the holstered gun under his armpit.

  "I have an important document for the President. My name is Pitt. He's expecting me You've got to get me through to him."

  The Mounties pounced on Pitt again, this time with fire in their eyes. The Secret Service agent held up a restraining hand.

  "Hold on!" He stared at Pitt skeptically. "I couldn't take you to the President even if I wanted to."

  "Then get me to Harrison Moon," Pitt snarled, getting fed up with the absurdity of it all.

  "Does Moon know you?"

  "You better believe it."

  Mercier, Oates and Moon were sitting in the anteroom of the Senate, watching the President on a television monitor, when the door burst open and a horde of Secret Service men, Mounties and building guards, dragging Pitt with at least a half-dozen set of hands, flooded into the room like a tidal wave. "Call off the hounds," Pitt shouted. "I've got it!"

  Mercier spun to his feet, open-mouthed. He was too stunned to react immediately. "Who is this man?"

  Oates demanded.

  "My God, it's Pitt!" Moon managed to blurt.

  His arms pinned, an eye swelling from a sneak punch, Pitt nodded toward the battered old travel bag held by the Mountie. "The treaty copy is in there."

  While Mercier vouched for Pitt and swept the security people from the room, Oates studied the contents of the treaty.

  Finally he looked up hesitantly. "Is it real? I mean, there's no chance of a forgery?"

  Pitt collapsed in a chair, tenderly probing the growing mouse under his eye, the long mission seemingly finished. "Rest easy, Mr. Secretary, you're holding the genuine article."

  Mercier turned from closing the door and quickly thumbed through a copy of the President's speech.

  "He's about two minutes away from his closing statement."

  "We better get this to him, fast," said Moon.

  Mercier looked down at the exhausted man in the chair. "I think Mr. Pitt should have that honor. He represents the men who died for it."

  Pitt abruptly sat up. "Me? I can't go in front of a hundred million viewers watching the Canadian Parliament and interrupt a presidential address. Not looking like a masquerade party drunk."

  "You won't have to," said Mercier, smiling. "I'll interrupt the President myself and ask him to step to the anteroom. You take it from there."

  In the deep red setting of the Senate chamber, the leaders of the Canadian government sat stunned at the President of the United States' invitation to begin negotiations for merging the two nations. It was the first any of them had heard of it. Only Sarveux sat unperturbed, his face calm and unreadable.
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  A wave of mutterings coursed through the chamber as the President's national security adviser stepped to the lectern and whispered in his ear. An interruption of a major address was a break in custom and was not to be taken without a minor fuss.

  "Please excuse me for a moment," the President said, heightening the mystery. He turned and stepped through the doorway to the antechamber.

  In the President's eyes, Pitt looked like a derelict from hell. He came forward and embraced him.

  "Mr. Pitt, you don't know how happy I am to see you."

  "Sorry I'm late," was all Pitt could think to reply. Then he forced a crooked smile and carefully held up the holed paper.

  The President took the treaty and carefully scanned its contents. When he looked up, Pitt was surprised to see tears rimming his eyes. In a rare instance of emotion he muttered a choked "Thank you," and turned away.

  Mercier and Moon sat down before the TV monitor and watched the President return to the lectern.

  "My apologies for the interruption, but a document of great historical significance has just been handed to me. It is called the North American Treaty."