Treasure dp-9

by Clive Cussler

  The crew did not look as if they had starved or died slowly from the cold. Death had come suddenly and unexpectedly.

  Pitt guessed the cause. All hatch covers had been tightly sealed to keep out the cold, and the only opening for ventilation had frozen over.

  The pots containing the last meal were sitting on the small oil stove.

  There was no way for the heat and smoke to escape to the outside. Lethal carbon monoxide had built up within the cargo hold. Unconsciousness had struck without warning, and each man died where he sat.

  Almost as if he was afraid to awaken the long-dead seaman, Pitt very carefully chipped the ice away from the wax tablets until they came free. Then he unzipped the front of his dry suit and slipped them inside.

  Pitt no longer noticed the agony of the cold, the nervous sweat that was trickling from his pores, or the shivering. His mind was so absorbed in the morbid scene that he failed to hear Giordino's repeated demands for a reply.

  "Are you still with us?" asked Giordino. "Answer, dammit!"

  Pitt mumbled a few unintelligible words.

  "Say again. Are you in trouble?"

  Giordino's concerned tone finally shook Pitt out of his trancelike state.

  Inform Commander Knight his worst fear is confirmed," Pitt answered.

  "The antique status Of the ship is genuine. And by the way," he added in a monotonous, laconic voice, "you might also mention that if he needs witnesses, I can produce the crew."

  "You're wanted on the phone," Julius SchiHer's wife called through the kitchen window.

  Schiller looked up from the barbecue in the backyard of his tree-shaded home in Chevy Chase. "They give a name?"

  "No, but it sounds like Dale Nichols."

  He sighed and held up a pair of tongs. "Come mind the steaks so they won't burn."

  Mrs. Schiller gave her husband a brief kiss as they passed each other on the porch. He entered his study, closed the door and picked up the receiver.

  "Yes?"

  "Julius, Dale."

  "What's on your mind?"

  "Sorry to call on a Sunday," said Nichols. "Did I interrupt anything?"

  "Only a family barbecue."

  "You must be a diehard. It's only forty-five degrees outside."

  "Beats smoking up the garage-"

  "Steak and scrambled eggs, that's my favorite."

  Schiller caught Nichols's drift on the eggs and switched his phone onto a secure line that entered a computer scramble mode. "Okay, Dale, what have you got?"

  "Hala Kamil. The exchange came off smoothly,"

  "Her look-alike is at Walter Reed Hospital?" Schiller asked.

  "Under tight security to go along with the act:"

  "Who doubled for her?"

  "Teri Rooney, the actress. She did a superb makeup job. You couldn't tell her apart from the real SecretaryGeneral unless you were nose to nose-As a backup, we arranged a press conference by hospital doctors.

  They gave out a story describing her serious condition."

  "And Kantil?"

  "She remained on the Air Force plane that brought her from Greenland.

  After refueling, it flew to Buckley Field near Denver. from there she was flown by helicopter to Breckenridge. "

  "The ski resort in Colorado?"

  "Yes, she's resting comfortably at Senator Pitts chalet just outside of town. No injuries except a few bruises and a mild case of frostbite."

  "How is she taking her forced convalescence?"

  "No word yet. Hala was heavily sedated when she was carried from the hospital at Thule. But she'll go along when she learns of our operation to safeguard her arrival at the U.N.

  headquarters to address the opening session of the General Assembly. A reliable source close to her says she plans on making a scathing indictment of Yazid, exposing him as a religious charlatan and offering proof of his underground terrorist activities."

  "I've read a report from the same source," Schiller admitted.

  "Five days until the opening session," said Nichols. "Yazid will pull out all stops to blow her away."

  "She's got to be kept on ice until she steps to the podium," Schiller said, deadly serious.

  "She's safe," said Nichols. "any word from the Egyptian government on your end?"

  "President Hasan is giving us his full cooperation regarding Kantil.

  He's scratching every hour he can buy or steal to launch his new economic reforms and replace military leaders with men he can trust.

  Hala Kantil is the only thread preventing Yazid from attempting a quick grab for the Egyptian government. If Yazid's assassins stop her before her speech goes out over world news satellite channels, there is a real danger of Egypt becoming another Iran before the monday is out."

  "Relax, Yazid won't get wise to the scam until it's too late," said Nichols confidentially.

  "I assume she is under heavy guard?"

  "By a top team of Secret Service agents. The President is personally keeping a tight grip on the operation."

  Schiller's wife knocked on the door and spoke loudly from the other side. "Steaks are ready, Julius."

  "In a minute," he answered.

  Nichols picked up on the exchange. "That's all I have for now. I'll let you get back to your steaks."

  "I'd feel better if the FBI was lending a hand," said Schiller.

  "The White House security staff has considered every contingency. The President thought it best to keep all intelligence within a tight circle."

  Schiller paused pensively for a moment. Then he said, "Don't screw it up, Dale."

  "Not to worry. I promise, Hala Kamil will arrive at the U.N. building in New York in pristine condition and full of fire."

  "She'd better."

  "Does the sun set in the west?"

  Schiller set down the phone. He had an uneasy feeling. He hoped to God the White House knew what it was doing.

  Across the street three men sat in the back of a Ford van with "Capitol Plumbing, 24-hour emergency service" painted on the panels. The cramped interior was crowded with electronic eavesdropping equipment.

  Tedium had set in five hours ago. Surveillance is perhaps the most boring job since watching rails rust. One man smoked and the other two didn't and couldn't stand the stale air. All were stiff and cold.

  Former counterespionage agents, they had resigned to become independent contractors.

  Most retired agents occasionally take on an outside job for the government, but these three were among the very few who respected money more than patriotic duty, and they sold what ever classified information they could ferret out to the highest bidder. '

  One of them, a blond, scarecrow type, peered through binoculars out a tinted window at Schiller's house. "He's leaving the study."

  The fat man hunched over a recording machine with earphones nodded in agreement. "All talk has ceased."

  The , man had a great waxed handlebar mustache, operated a laser parabolic, a sensitive microphone that received voice sounds inside a room from the vibrations on a windowPane, and then magnified them through fiber optics onto a sound channel.

  "Anything interesting?" asked the skinny blond.

  The fat man removed the earphones and wiped his sweating forehead. "My share from this gig will pay off my fishing boat."

  "I love a marketable commodity."

  "This information is worth big bucks to the right party."

  "Who've you got in mind?" asked the one with the mustache.

  The fat man grinned like a glutted coyote. "A wealthy, highly placed raghead who wants to make points with Akhmad Yazid."

  The President rose from behind his desk and gave a brief nod as CIA Director Martin Brogan was ushered into the Oval Office for the morning intelligence briefing.

  The formality of a handshake between the two men had fallen by the wayside soon after their daily meetings began. The slim, urbane Brogan didn't mind in the least. He had narrow, long-fingered violinist's hands, while the tall, two-hundred-pound
President had massive paws and a bone-crushing grip.

  Brogan waited until the President sat down before settling in a leather chair. Almost as if it were a ritual, the President poured a cup of coffee, ladled in a teaspoon of sugar and graciously handed a large mug to Brogan.

  The President brushed a hand over his head of silver hair and fixed Brogan with a limpid pair of gray eyes. "Well, what secrets does the world hold this morning?"

  Brogan shrugged and passed a leather-bound file across the desk. "At 0900 Moscow time, Soviet President Georgi Antonov balled his mistress in the backseat of his limousine on the way to the Kremlin."

  "I envy his method for starting the day," the President said with a broad smile.

  "He also made two calls from his car phone. One to Sergei Komilov, head of the Soviet space program, the other to his son, who works in the commercial section of the embassy in Mexico City. You'll find the transcript of the conversations on pages four and five."

  The President opened the file, slipped on a pair of reading glasses and scanned the transcript, amazed, as always, at the penetration of intelligence gathering.

  "And how was the rest of Georgi's day?"

  "He spent most of his time on domestic affairs. you wouldn't want to be in his shoes. The outlook on the Soviet economy grows worse by the day.

  His reforms in the fields and factories have gone down the toilet. The old guard in the Politburo is trying to undermine him. The military isn't happy with his program's Proposals and has gone public with its Opposition. Soviet citizens are getting more vocal as the lines get longer. With a little prodding by our operatives, graffiti knocking the government are appearing throughout the cities. Overall economic growth has flattened out at two percent. There is a strong possibility Antonov may be forced from power before next summer."

  "If our deficit doesn't level off I may wind up in the same boat," the President said grimly.

  Brogan made no comment. He wasn't expected to.

  "What's the latest intelligence from Egypt?" the President asked, moving on.

  "President Hasan is also hanging by the skin of his teeth. The air force remains loyal, but the army generals are close to throwing in with Yazid. Defense Minister Abu Hamid held a secret meeting with Yazid in Port Said. Our informants say Haniid won't swing his support without assurances of a solid power position. He does not want to be dictated to by Yazid's circle of fanatical mullahs."

  "Think Yazid will give in?"

  Brogan shook his head. "No, he has no intention of sharing power.

  Han-lid has underestimated Yazid's ruthlessness. We've already uncovered a conspiracy to place a bomb in Haniid's private plane."

  "Have you alerted Harried?"

  "I'll need your authority."

  "You have it," said the President. "Hamid is cagey. He may think we're pulling a ploy to keep him out of Yazid's camp."

  "We can supply the names of Yazid's assassin team. Hamid can take it from there if he insists on proof."

  The President leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Can we tie Yazid to the crash of the U.N. plane carrying Hala Kamfl?"

  "Circumstantial evidence at best," Brogan admitted. "We won't have any concrete conclusions until the investigators wrap up and make their report. for now, the disaster is a real puzzle. Only a few facts have been uncovered. We do know the genuine pilot was murdered; his body was found in the trunk of a car parked at Heathrow airport."

  "Sounds like a maria hit."

  "Almost, except the killer did a masterful job of disguising himself well enough to double as the pilot. After actually taking off the plane, he killed the flight crew by injecting them with a toxic nerve agent known as sarin, turned off course and abandoned the aircraft over Iceland."

  "He must have worked with a team of highly trained professionals," the President said admiringly.

  "We have reason to think he acted alone," said Brogan.

  "Alone?" The President's expression turned incredulous. "This guy has to be one canny son of a bitch."

  "The finesse and intricacy are trademarks of an Arab whose name is Suleiman Aziz Ammar."

  "A terrorist?"

  "Not in the crude sense. Animar is one of the cleverest assassins in the game. I wish he was on our side."

  "Never let the liberals in Congress hear you say that," the President said wryly.

  "Or the news media," Brogan added.

  "Do you have a file on Ammar?"

  "About a meter thick. He's what the trade used to call a master of disguise. A good, practicing Muslim who has little interest in politics, a mercenary with no known association with fanatical Islamic diehards. Ammar charges enormous fees, and gets them. A shrewd businessman. His wealth is estimated at over sixty million dollars. He seldom goes by the book. His hits are ingeniously planned and carried out. All are planned to look like accidents. None can be laid on his doorstep with certainty. Innocent victims mean nothing to him so long as his target is taken out. We suspect he is responsible for over a hundred deaths in the past ten years. His attempt, proven, to kill Hala K I would mark his first recorded failure."

  The President adjusted his glasses and turned to the report on the air crash. "I must have missed something. If he meant for the plane to vanish in the ocean, why did he bother poisoning the passengers? What possible reason could he have for killing them twice?"

  "There's the catch," explained Brogan. "My analysts don't think Ammar was responsible for murdering the passengers."

  The President's eyes took on a look of surprise. "You've switched me on a sidetrack, Martin. What in hell are you talking about?"

  "Pathologists from the FBI labs flew up to Thule and performed autopsies on the victims. They found fifty times the sarin required to kill inside the flight crew's bodies, but their tests showed the passengers died from ingesting manchineel in the flight meal."

  Brogan paused to sip his coffee.

  The President waited, impatiently tapping a pen against a desk calendar.

  "Manchineel, or poison guava as it's called, is native to the Caribbean and gulf coast of Mexico," Brogan continued. "It comes from a tree that bears a deadly, sweet-tasting, appleshaped fruit. Carib indians used the sap to tip their arrows. any number of early shipwrecked sailors and modern tourists have died after eating the manchineel's poisonous juices."

  "And your people believe an assassin of Ammar's caliber wouldn't stoop to using manchineel?"

  "Something like that." Brogan nodded. "Ammar's connections would have no trouble buying or stealing sarin from a European chemical-supply company. Manchineel is something else. You can't find it on a shelf.

  It also works too slowly for a quick kill. I find it doubtful Ammar would even consider using it."

  "If not the Arab, then who?"

  "We don't know," answered Brogan. "Certainly none of the three survivors. The only trail, and a faint one, leads to a Mexican delegate by the name of Eduardo Ybarra. He's the only other passenger besides Hala Kaniil who didn't eat the meal. "

  "It says here he died in the crash." The President looked up from the briefing file. "How could he insert poison in the flight meals without being seen?"

  "That was done in the kitchen of the company that caters for the airline. British investigators are checking out that lead now."

  "Maybe Ybarra is innocent. Maybe for some simple reason he didn't eat."

  "According to the surviving flight attendant, Hala slept through the meal, but Ybarra feigned an upset stomach."

  "It's possible."

  "The surviving flight attendant saw him eating a sandwich from his briefcase."

  "Then he knew."

  "Looks that way."

  "Why did he risk coming on board if he knew everyone was going to die except him?"

  "As a backup, in case the main target, or targets, probably the entire contingent of Mexicans, didn't take the poison."

  The President leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling. "Okay, Kamil is a Thorn in
the side of Yazid. He pays Animar to erase her. The job is botched and the plane doesn't disappear in the middle of the Arctic Ocean as planned but comes down in Greenland. So much for mystery number one. Solid facts for a good case. We'll call it the Egyptian connection. Mystery number two, the Mexican connection, is far more cloudy. There is no obvious motive for a mass murder, and the only suspect is dead. If I were a judge I'd order the case dismissed for lack of evidence."

  "I'd have to go along," said Brogan. "There has been no evidence of terrorist movements operating out of Mexico."

  "You forget Topiltzin," the President said unexpectedly.

  Brogan was surprised at the cold, mysterious look of pure anger that spread across the President's face.

  "The agency has not forgotten Topiltzin," Brogan assured him, "or what he did to Guy Rivas. I'll have him taken out whenever you say the word."

  The President suddenly sighed and sagged in his chair. "If only it was that simple. Snap my fingers and the CIA obliterates a foreign opposition leader. The risk is too great. Ken nedy found that out when he condoned the mafia's attempt to kill Castro. "

  "Reagan made no objections to the attempts to get Muarnmar Qaddafi. "

  "Yes," the President said wearily. "If only he had known Qaddafi would fool everyone and die of cancer!"

  "No such luck with Topiltzin. Medical reports say he's as strong as a Missouri mule."

  "The man is a bloody lunatic. If he takes over Mexico, we'll have a disaster on our hands."

  "You played the tape made by Rivas?" Brogan asked, knowing the answer.

  "Four times," the President said bitterly. "It's enough to provoke nightmares."

  "And if Topiltzin topples the present government and makes good his threat by sending millions of his people flooding across our border in a mad attempt to recover the American Southwest." . . . ?" Brogan let the question hang.