Cyclops dp-8

by Clive Cussler

  <<44>>

  "Do you really expect to get away with it?" Pitt asked.

  Colonel Ramon Kleist, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired, rocked on his heels and scratched an itch on his back with a swagger stick. "So long as we can withdraw as a unit with our casualties, yes, I believe the mission can be pulled off successfully."

  "Nothing this complicated can go letter perfect," said Pitt. "Destroying the compound and the antenna, plus killing off Velikov and his entire staff, sound to me like you're biting off more than you can chew."

  "Your eyewitness observation and our stealth aircraft photos corroborate the light defensive measures."

  "How many men make up your team?" asked Pitt.

  "Thirty-one including yourself"

  "The Russians are bound to find out who trashed their secret base. You'll be kicking a hornet's nest."

  "All part of the plan," Kleist said airily.

  Kleist stood ramrod straight, his chest threatening to burst from a flowered shirt. Pitt guessed his age as late fifties. He was a medium skinned black, born in Argentina, the only child of a former SS officer who had fled Germany after the war and the daughter of a Liberian diplomat. Sent to a private school in New York, he decided to drop out and make a career in the Marines.

  "I thought there was an unwritten agreement between the CIA and the KGB-- we won't waste your agents if you don't waste ours."

  The colonel gave Pitt an innocent look. "Whatever gave you the idea our side will do the dirty work?"

  Pitt did not reply, only stared at Kleist, waiting.

  "The mission will be conducted by Cuban Special Security Forces," he explained. "Their equivalent to our SEALS. Or to be honest, expertly trained exiles dressed in genuine Cuban battle fatigues. Even their underwear and socks will be standard Cuban military issue. Weapons, wristwatches, and other equipment will be of Soviet manufacture. And, just so we keep up appearances, the landing will come from the Cuban side of the island."

  "All neat and tidy."

  "We try to be efficient."

  "Are you leading the mission?"

  Kleist smiled. "No, I'm getting too old to leap out of the surf onto beaches. The assault team will be led by Major Angelo Quintana. You'll meet him at our camp in San Salvador. I'll be standing by on the SPUT."

  "Say again."

  "Special-purpose undersea transport," answered Kleist, "a vessel constructed expressly for missions of this kind. Most people don't know they exist. You'll find it most interesting."

  "I'm not what you'd call trained for combat."

  "Your job is purely to guide the team into the compound and show them the ventilator access to the garage area. Then you're to return to the beach and stay under cover until the mission is completed."

  "Do you have a timetable for the raid?"

  Kleist had a pained expression. "We prefer to call it a covert operation."

  "Sorry, I've never read your bureaucratic manual on semantics."

  "In answer to your question, the landing is set for 0200 four days from now."

  "Four days may be too late to save my friends."

  Kleist looked genuinely concerned. "We're already working on short notice and cutting our practice exercises razor thin. We need time to cover every uncertainty, every freak event. The plan has to be as airtight as our computer's tactical programs can make it."

  "And if there's a human flaw in your plan?"

  Any expression of friendly warmth left Kleist's face and was replaced with a cold, hard look. "If there is a human flaw, Mr. Pitt, it is you. Barring divine intervention, the success or failure of this mission will rest heaviest on your shoulders,"

  The CIA people were thorough. Pitt was shuffled from office to office, interview to interview, with stopwatch precision. The plans to neutralize Cayo Santa Maria progressed with prairie-fire swiftness. His briefing by Colonel Kleist took place less than three hours after he was interrogated by Martin Brogan. He came to realize there were thousands of contingency plans to invade every island in the Caribbean and every nation in Central and South America. Computerized war games created a series of options. All the covert-operation experts had to do was select the program that came closest to fitting the objective, and then refine it.

  Pitt endured a thorough physical examination before he was allowed lunch. The physician pronounced him fit, pumped him full of high-potency vitamins, and prescribed an early bedtime before Pitt's drowsy mind turned to mush.

  A tall, high-cheekboned woman with braided hair was assigned as his nursemaid, escorting him to the proper room at the proper time. She introduced herself as Alice, no surname, no title. She wore a soft tan suit over a lace blouse. Pitt thought her rather pretty and found himself wondering what she would look like curled up on satin sheets.

  "Mr. Brogan has arranged for you to eat in the executive dining room," she said in perfect tour-guide fashion. "We'll take the elevator."

  Pitt suddenly remembered something. "I'd like the use of a telephone."

  "Sorry, not possible."

  "Mind if I ask why?"

  "Have you forgotten you're supposed to be dead?" Alice asked matter-of-factly. "One phone call to a friend or a lover and you could blow the entire operation."

  "Yes, `The slip of a lip may sink a ship,' " Pitt said cynically. "Look, I need some information from a total stranger. I'll hand him a phony name.

  "Sorry, not possible."

  A scratched phonograph record came to Pitt's mind. "Give me a phone or I'll do something nasty"

  She looked at him quizzically. "Like what?"

  "Go home," he said simply.

  "Mr. Brogan's orders. You're not to leave the building until your flight to our camp in San Salvador. He'd have you in a straitjacket before you reached the front door."

  Pitt hung back as they walked down a hallway. Then he suddenly turned and entered an anteroom whose door was unmarked. He calmly walked past a startled secretary and entered the inner office. A short man with cropped white hair, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and making strange markings on a graph, looked up in amused surprise.

  Pitt flashed his best politician's smile and said, "I beg your pardon, may I borrow your phone?"

  "If you work here, you know that using an unauthorized phone is against agency regulations."

  "Then I'm safe," said Pitt. "I don't work here."

  "You'll never get an outside line," said old White Hair.

  "Watch me."

  Pitt picked up the phone and asked the operator for Martin Brogan's office. In a few seconds Brogan's private secretary came on the line.

  "My name is Dirk Pitt. Please inform Mr. Brogan that if I don't get the use of a telephone in one minute I'm going to cause a terrible scene."

  "Who is this?"

  "I told you."

  Pitt was obstinate. Stoutly refusing to take no for an answer, it took him another twenty minutes of cursing, shouting, and generally being obnoxious before Brogan consented to a call outside the building, but only if Alice stood by and monitored the conversation.

  She showed him to a small private office and pointed to the phone. "We have an internal operator standing by. Give her your number and she'll put it through."

  Pitt spoke into the receiver. "Operator, what's your name?"

  "Jennie Murphy," replied a sexy voice.

  "Jennie, let's start with Baltimore information. I'd like the number of Weehawken Marine Products."

  "Just a sec. I'll get it for you."

  Jennie got the number from the Baltimore information operator and placed the call.

  After explaining his problem to four different people, Pitt was finally connected to the executive chairman of the board-- a title generally bestowed on old company heads who were eased out of the corporate mainstream.

  "I'm Bob Conde. What can I do for you?"

  Pitt looked at Alice and winked. "Jack Farmer, Mr. Conde. I'm with a federal archeological survey and I've discovered an old diving helmet in a shipwreck I hope you m
ight identify."

  "I'll do my best. My grandfather started the business nearly eighty years ago. We've kept fairly tight records. Have you got a serial number?"

  "Yes, it was on a data plate attached to the front of the breastplate." Pitt closed his eyes and visualized the helmet on the corpse inside the Cyclops. "It read, 'Weehawken Products, Inc., Mark V, Serial Number 58-67-C.' "

  "The Navy standard diving helmet," Conde said without hesitation. "We've been making them since 1916. Constructed of spun copper with bronze fittings. Has four sealed glass viewports."

  "You sold it to the Navy?"

  "Most of our orders came from the Navy. Still do, as a matter of fact. The Mark V, Mod 1 is still popular for certain types of surface-supplied-air diving operations. But this helmet was sold to a commercial customer."

  "If you'll forgive me for asking, how do you know?"

  "The serial number. Fifty-eight is the year it was manufactured. Sixty-seven is the number produced, and C stands for commercial sale. In other words, it was the sixty-seventh helmet to come out of our factory in 1958 and was sold to a commercial salvage company."

  "Any chance of digging back and finding who bought it?"

  "Might take a good half hour. We haven't bothered putting the old records on computer disks. I'd better call you back."

  Alice shook her head.

  "The government can afford the phone service, Mr. Conde. I'll hang on the line."

  "Suit yourself."

  Conde was as good as his word. He came back in thirty-one minutes. "Mr. Farmer, one of the bookkeepers found what you were looking for."

  "I'm ready."

  "The helmet along with a diving suit and hose equipment were sold to a private individual. Coincidentally, I knew him. Name was Hans Kronberg. A diver from the old school. Caught the bends more than anybody I ever knew. Hans was badly crippled, but it never stopped him from diving."

  "Do you know what became of him?"

  "As I recall, he purchased the equipment for a salvage job somewhere around Cuba. Rumor was the bends finally put him away for good."

  "You don't remember who hired him?"

  "No, it was too long ago," said Conde. "I think he found himself a partner who had a few bucks. Hans's regular diving gear was old and worn. His suit must have had fifty patches on it. He worked hand to mouth, barely earned enough to make a decent living. Then one day he walks in here, buys all new equipment, and pays cash."

  "I appreciate your help," said Pitt.

  "Not at all. Glad you called. Interesting you should call. May I ask where you found his helmet?"

  "Inside an old steel wreck near the Bahamas."

  Conde got the picture. He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "So old Hans never surfaced. Well, I guess he would have preferred it to passing away in bed."

  "Can you think of anyone else who might remember Hans?"

  "Not really. All the hard-hat divers from the old days are gone now. The only lead I can think of is Hans's widow. She still sends me Christmas cards. She lives in a rest home."

  "Do you know the name of the rest home or where it's located?"

  "I believe it's in Leesburg, Virginia. Haven't a clue to the name. Speaking of names, hers is Hilda."

  "Thank you, Mr. Conde. You've been a great help."

  "If you're ever in Baltimore, Mr. Farmer, drop in and say hello. Got plenty of time to talk about the old days since my sons aced me out of the company helm."

  "I'd like that," said Pitt. "Goodbye."

  Pitt cut the connection and rang Jennie Murphy. He asked her to call senior citizen rest homes around the Leesburg area until she hit on the one that housed Hilda Kronberg.

  "What are you after?" demanded Alice.

  Pitt smiled. "I'm looking for El Dorado."

  "Very funny."

  "That's the trouble with CIA types," said Pitt. "They can't take a joke."

  <<45>>

  The ford delivery truck rolled up the driveway of the Winthrop Manor Nursing Home and stopped at the service entrance. The truck was painted a bright blue with illustrations of floral arrangements on the sides. Gold lettering advertised Mother's House of Flowers.

  "Please don't dally," said Alice impatiently. "You have to be in San Salvador four hours from now."

  "Do my best," Pitt said as he jumped from the truck, wearing a driver's uniform and carrying a bouquet of roses.

  "A mystery to me how you talked Mr. Brogan into this private excursion."

  Pitt smiled as he closed the door. "A simple matter of extortion."

  The Winthrop Manor Nursing Home was an idyllic setting for the sunset years. There was a nine-hole golf course, tropical indoor swimming pool, an elegant dining room, and lush landscaped gardens. The main building was designed more along the lines of a five-star hotel than a drab sanatorium.

  No ramshackle home for the aged poor, thought Pitt. Winthrop Manor radiated first-class taste for wealthy senior citizens. He began to wonder how the widow of a diver who struggled to make ends meet could afford to live in such luxury.

  He came through a side door, walked up to a reception desk, and held up the flowers. "I have a delivery for Mrs. Hilda Kronberg."

  The receptionist gave him a direct gaze and smiled. Pitt found her quite attractive, dark red hair, long and gleaming, gray-blue eyes set in a narrow face.

  "Just leave them on the counter," she said sweetly. "I'll have an attendant give them to her."

  "I have to deliver them personally," Pitt said. "They come with a verbal message."

  She nodded and pointed to a side door. "You'll probably find Mrs. Kronberg out by the pool. Don't expect her to be lucid, she drifts in and out of reality."

  Pitt thanked her and felt remiss for not making a try for a dinner date. He walked through the door and down a ramp. The glassed-in pool was designed like a Hawaiian garden with black lava rock and a waterfall.

  After asking two elderly women for Hilda Kronberg, he found her sitting in a wheelchair, her eyes staring into the water, her mind elsewhere.

  "Mrs. Kronberg?"

  She shaded her eyes with one hand and looked up. "Yes?"

  "My dame is Dirk Pitt, and I wonder if I might ask you a few questions?"

  "Mr. Pitt, is it?" she asked in a soft voice. She studied his uniform and the flowers. "Why would a florist's delivery boy want to ask me questions?"

  Pitt smiled at her use of "boy" and handed her the flowers. "It concerns your late husband, Hans."

  "Are you with him?" she asked suspiciously.

  "No, I'm quite alone."

  Hilda was sickly thin and her skin was as transparent as tissue paper. Her face was heavily made up and her hair skillfully dyed. Her diamond rings would have bought a small fleet of Rolls-Royces. Pitt guessed her age was a good fifteen years younger than the seventy-five she appeared. Hilda Kronberg was a woman waiting to die. Yet when she smiled at the mention of her husband's name, her eyes seemed to smile too.

  "You look too young to have known Hans," she said.

  "Mr. Conde of Weehawken Marine told me about him."

  "Bob Conde, of course. He and Hans were old poker pals."

  "You never remarried after his death?"

  "Yes, I remarried."

  "Yet you still use his name?"

  "A long story that wouldn't interest you."

  "When was the last time you saw Hans?"

  "It was a Thursday. I saw him off on the steamship Monterey, bound for Havana, on December 10, 1958. Hans was always chasing rainbows. He and his partner were off on another treasure hunt. He swore they would find enough gold to buy me the dream house I always wanted. Sadly, he never came back."

  "Do you recall who his partner was?"

  Her gentle features suddenly turned hard. "What are you after, Mr. Pitt? Who do you represent?"

  "I'm a special projects director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency," he replied. "During a survey on a sunken ship called the Cyclops, I discovered what I believe to be th
e remains of your husband."

  "You found Hans?" she asked, surprised.

  "I didn't make positive identification, but the diver's helmet on the body was traced to him."

  "Hans was a good man," she said wistfully. "Not a good provider, perhaps, but we had a good life together until. . . well, until he died."

  "You asked me if I was with him?" he prompted gently.

  "A family skeleton, Mr. Pitt. I'm taken good care o£ He watches over me. I've no complaints. My retreat from the real world is my own choosing. . ." Her voice trailed off and her stare grew distant.

  Pitt had to catch her before she retreated into a self-induced shell. "Did he tell you Hans was murdered?"

  Hilda's eyes flickered for an instant, and then she shook her head silently.

  Pitt knelt beside her and held her hand. "His lifeline and air hose were cut while he was working underwater."

  She noticeably trembled. "Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because it's the truth, Mrs. Kronberg. I give you my word. Whoever worked with Hans probably killed him so he could steal Hans's share of the treasure."

  Hilda sat there in trancelike confusion for nearly a minute. "You know about the La Dorada treasure," she said at last.

  "Yes," Pitt answered. "I know how it came to be on the Cyclops. I also know Hans and his partner salvaged it."

  Hilda began toying with one of the diamond rings on her hand. "Deep down I always suspected that Ray killed Hans."

  The delayed shock of understanding slowly fell over Pitt's face. He cautiously played a wild card. "You think that Hans was murdered by Ray LeBaron?"

  She nodded.

  The unexpected revelation caught Pitt unawares, and it took him a few moments to come back on track. "The motive was the treasure?" he asked softly.

  "No. The motive was me." She shook her head.

  Pitt did not reply, only waited quietly.

  "Things happen," she began in a whisper. "I was young and pretty in those days. Can you believe I was once pretty, Mr. Pitt?"

  "You're still very pretty"

  "I think you may need glasses, but thank you for the compliment."

  "You also have a quick mind."

  She gestured toward the main building. "Did they tell you I was a bit balmy?"