“I haven't received my marching orders yet,” he replied, “but I suspect they came with my pals, Giordino and Gunn. And you? Where will the needs of the service send you?”
“My home office is in San Francisco. I assume that's where they'll want me.”
He moved forward and took her in his arms, kissing her gently on the forehead. “Next time we meet,” he said softly, tenderly touching his fingertips to her cut and swollen lips, “I'll kiss you full on the mouth.”
“Are you a good kisser?”
“Girls come from miles around to kiss me.”
“If there is a next time,” she murmured softly, “I'll return the favor.”
Then she was walking with Simmons to a waiting car. Pitt stood alone by the forlorn Chris-Craft and watched until the car rounded a streetcorner. He was standing there when Giordino and Gunn came bounding across the dock, shouting like madmen.
They had remained in the air until the runabout was safely tied to the town dock. Seeing an INS helicopter sitting in a field about a mile north of town, Giordino would have none of it. He set the NUMA helicopter down in a parking lot less than a block from the dock, much to the annoyance of a deputy sheriff, who threatened him with arrest. Giordino pacified him by claiming they were scouting locations for a Hollywood production company and promised they would recommend Grapevine as the perfect backdrop for a new big-budget horror movie. Suitably charmed by NUMA's most renowned con artist, the deputy insisted on driving Giordino and Rudi Gunn to the dock.
Standing only five feet four inches but with shoulders nearly as wide as he was tall, Giordino lifted Pitt off his feet in a great bear hug. “What is it with you?” he said, elated to see Pitt alive. “Every time I let you out of my sight you get into trouble.”
“Natural instinct, I guess,” Pitt grunted while being crushed.
Gunn was more sedate. He simply put his hand on Pitt's shoulder. “Good to see you again, Dirk.”
“I've missed you, Rudi,” said Pitt, taking a deep breath after Giordino released him.
“Who were those guys in the ultralights?” asked Giordino.
“Smugglers of illegal aliens.”
Giordino stared down at the bullet holes in the Chris-Craft. “You ruined a perfectly good boat.”
Pitt also studied the shattered windshield, the splintered engine hatch, the holes stitched across the bow, the wisp of dark smoke rising from the engine compartment. “If you'd arrived two seconds later, Admiral Sandecker would be stuck with the chore of writing my eulogy.”
“When we flew over Foley's cabin, the place was swarming with guys in black ninja suits. Naturally thinking the worst, I shoved the throttles to the board and we took off after you. After finding you being strafed by a bunch of shady characters flying ultralights, we just naturally crashed the party.”
“And saved a dozen lives,” Pitt added. “But where in hell did you come from? The last I heard you were in Hawaii and Rudi was in Washington.”
“Lucky for you,” said Gunn, “Admiral Sandecker was handed a priority project by the President. As much as he disliked cutting off your rest and recuperation, he ordered Giordino and me to meet in Seattle. We both arrived last night, then borrowed a helicopter at the NUMA marine-science center at Bremerton to come pick you up. After you called the admiral this morning and told him what you'd discovered and that you were making a run for it down the river, Al and I took off and dashed across the Olympic Peninsula in forty minutes flat.”
“That Machiavellian old sea dog sent you thousands of miles just to put me back to work?” Pitt asked in mild amazement.
Gunn smiled. “He told me that he was reasonably certain that if he'd called himself, you'd have uttered unrepeatable words over the phone.”
“That old man knows me pretty well,” Pitt admitted.
“You've had a rough time,” said Gunn sympathetically. “Perhaps I can talk him into letting you lay low for a few days longer.”
“Not a bad idea,” Giordino added candidly. “You look like the rat the cat dragged in.”
“Some vacation,” Pitt said finally. “I hope I never have another like it. I'd like to think of it as being over.”
Gunn motioned toward the edge of the dock. “The helicopter isn't far. Think you can make it okay?”
“There are a few things I'd like to take care of before you rush me off,” Pitt said, giving both men a cold eye. “First, I'd like to get Sam Foley's Chris-Craft to the nearest boat yard for repairs and an engine overhaul. Second, it might be nice if we found a doctor who wouldn't ask a lot of questions while he attends to a gunshot wound in my hip. And third, I'm starved. I'm not going anywhere until I've been fed breakfast.”
“You're wounded?” both men said in unison.
“Hardly a life-threatening puncture, but I'm not keen to get gangrene.”
The show of obstinacy was tremendously effective. Giordino nodded at Gunn. “You find Dirk a doctor, I'll take care of the boat. Then we'll check out the nearest restaurant. This looks like a good town for boiled crab.”
“There is one more thing,” said Pitt.
The two men stared at him expectantly.
“What's this urgent project I have to drop everything for?”
“It involves an underwater investigation of a strange shipping port near Morgan City, Louisiana,” answered Gunn.
“What's so strange about a shipping port?”
“Its location in a swamp, for one thing. That, and the fact the developer is the head of a large-scale international alien-smuggling empire.”
“Heaven help me,” Pitt said piously, throwing up his hands.
“Say it isn't true.”
“You have a problem?” Giordino asked.
“I've been up to my ears in illegal immigrants for the past twelve hours—that's the problem.”
“It's truly amazing how you can gather on-the-job experience with such ease.”
Pitt fixed his friend with an icy stare. “I suppose our divine government thinks the port is being used to smuggle in aliens.”
“The facility is far too elaborate for that alone,” replied Gunn. “We've been given the job of discovering its true purpose.”
“Who built and developed the port?”
“An outfit by the name of Qin Shang Maritime Limited out of Hong Kong.”
Pitt didn't throw an apoplectic fit. He didn't even bat an eyelid. He did look, however, as if he'd been punched in the pit of his stomach. His face took on the expression of a man in a horror movie who just found out his wife ran away with the monster. His fingers bit deeply, painfully, into Gunn's arm. “You did say Qin Shang?”
“That's right,” answered Gunn, wondering how he would explain the black-and-blue marks at his gym. “He directs an empire of malignant activities. Possibly the fourth-richest man in the world. You act as though you know him.”
“We've never met, but I'm safe in saying he hates my guts.”
“You're kidding,” said Giordino.
Gunn looked puzzled. “Why would a man who has more money than a New York City bank hate an ordinary screwup like you?”
“Because,” Pitt said with a fiendish grin, “I torched his yacht.”
When Kung Chong failed to report the destruction of the runabout, and efforts to contact him were returned by silence, Lo Han knew his trusted assistant and the five men who flew with him were all dead. The realization was accompanied by the sickening certainty that the devil who caused so much grief had escaped.
He sat alone in the mobile security vehicle, trying to make some sense of the disaster. His black eyes had a vacant stare, his face was tight and cold. Kung Chong had reported seeing immigrants in the runabout. Their appearance seemed a mystery since all the prisoners were accounted for in their cells. Then a thought exploded in his mind. Chu Deng. That idiot on the catamaran must have somehow allowed the immigrants marked for execution to escape. There was no other conclusion. The man who was taking them to safety must have been in the pay of the American government.