By the time Pitt walked down the underground hallway to the park security offices, he was beginning to think how good that hospital bed in Reykjavik had felt and wondered how soon he could fall into a replacement. He wasn't sure what he expected to find in the park security offices but he had hardly envisioned what he stepped into.
The main conference room was huge; it looked like a scaled-down version of the war room at the Pentagon. The main table ran for at least fifty feet and was circled by over twenty people. There was a radio in one corner and the operator was busily pointing out locations to a marker who stood on a ramp beneath a map that must have stretched ten feet high and covered half the facing wall. Pitt walked slowly around the table and stood under the beautifully contoured and painted map of Disneyland. He was studying the many colored lights and the trail of blue fluorescent tape the marker was laying throulh the park traffic areas when Kippmann tapped him on the shoulder.
"Ready to go to work?"
"My body is still running on Iceland time. It's past five o'clock there. I could stand a little bracer."
"I'm sorry, sir." The words came from a big man, a tall pipe-smoking man whose eyes stared out at Pitt from behind fashionable rimless glasses. "Alcohol has never been permitted in any area of the park since we opened. And we intend to keep it that way."
"Sorry about that," Pitt said good-naturedly. He looked at Kippmann expectantly.
Kippmann took the cue. "Major Dirk Pitt, allow me to introduce Mr. Dan Lazard, Chief of Park security."
Lazard's grip was firm. "Mr. Kippmann has filled me in concerning your injuries. Do you think you're up to this?"
"I can handle it," Pitt said somberly. "But we'll have to do something about my bandaged profile-it's a bit conspicuous." Lazard's eyes.
A glint of amusement came into Lazard's eye.
"Think we can fix it so no one will notice your bandages-not even the nurse who taped them."
Later Pitt stoed in front of the full-length mirror and struck a menacing pose. He was torn between uttering laughter or a stream of four-lettered words from embarrassment as he stared at the life-sized figure of the Big Bad Wolf, who politely stared back at him.
"You've got to admit," Kippmann said, fighting back a chuckle, "your own mother wouldn't recognize you in that rig."
"I suppose it is in keeping with my character," Pitt said. He removed the wolf's head, sat down in a chair and sighed. "How much time have we left?"
"Another hour and forty minutes to go before Kelly's deadline."
"Don't you think I should be sent in the game now? You're not leaving me much time to spot the killers… if I can spot them."
"Between my men, the park security staff and agents from the F.B.I there must be close to forty people concentrating every effort on stopping the assassination. I'm saving you for when we Come down to the wire."
"Scraping the bottom of the barrel for a last-ditch attempt." Pitt leaned back and relaxed. "I can't say I agree with your tactics."
"You're not working with amateurs, Major. Every one of those people out there are pros. Some are dressed in costumes like you, some are walking hand in hand like lovers on a holiday, some are playing the part of families enjoying the rides, others have taken over as attendants. We even have men stationed on roofs and in the dummy second-story offices with telescopes and binoculars." Kippmann's voice was soft, but it carried total conviction. "The killers will be found and stopped before they do their dirty work. The odds we've stacked against Kelly meeting his goal and deade are staggering."
"Tell that to Oskar Rondheim," Pitt said. "There's the flaw that knocks the hell out of your good intentions-you don't know your adversary."
The silence lay heavy in the small room. Kippmann rubbed his palms across his face, then shook his head slowly, as if he were about to do something he intensely disliked. He picked up the ever-present briefcase and handed Pitt a folder marked simply 078-34.
"Granted, I haven't met him face to face, but he is no stranger to me." Kippmann read from the folder.
"'Oskar Rondheim, alias Max Rolland, alias Hugo von Klausen, alias Chatford Marazan, real name Carzo Butera, born in Brooklyn, New York, July 15, 1940. I could go on for hours about his arrests, his convictions.
He was pretty big along the New York waterfront. Organized the fishermen's union. Got muscled out by the syndicate and dropped from sight. Over the past few years we kept close tabs on Mr. Rondheim and his albatross industries. We finally put two and two together and came up with Carzo Butera."
A sly grin crept across Pitts face. "You've made your point. It would be interesting to see what your scandal sheet has to say about me."
"I have it right here," Kippmann said, matching Pitts grin. "Care to see it?"
"No, thanks. It couldn't tell me anything that I don't already know," Pitt said flatly. "I would be interested though in seeing what you have on Kirsti Fyrie."
Kippmann's expression went blank and he looked as if he had been shot. "I was hoping you wouldn't get around to her."
"You have her file also." It was more statement than question.
"Yes," Kippmann answered briefly. He saw there was no way out, no argument that would stand. He sighed with uneasiness and handed Pitt rUe number 883-57.
Pitt reached out and took the folder. For ten minutes he examined the contents, leafing very slowly, almost reluctantly from documents to photos, from reports to letters. Then finally, like a man in a dream, he closed the folder and gave it back to Kippmann.
"I can't believe it. It's ridiculous. I won't believe it."
"I'm afraid what you read is true, all of it." Kippmann's voice was quiet, even.
Pitt pulled the back of his hand across his eyes.
"Never, never in a thousand years would I have His voice faded away.
"It threw us out of gear too. Our first hint came when we could find no trace of her on New Guinea."
"I know. I'd already pegged her for a phony on that score."
"You knew? But how?"
"When we had dinner together in Reykjavik, I described a recipe that called for shark meat wrapped in a seaweed known as echidna. Miss Fyrie accepted it.
Rather strange behavior from a missionary who spent years in the jungles of New Guinea, don't you think?"
"How the hell should I know." Kippmann shrugged. "I don't have the vaguest notion as to what an echidna is."
"An echidna," Pitt said, "is an egg-laying spiny anteater. A mammal very common to the landscape of New Guinea."
"I can't say I blame her for missing the catch."
"How would you react if I said I was going to barbecue a New York cut steak wrapped in porcupine quills?"
"I'd say something."
"You've got the idea."
Kippmann stared at Pitt with an admiring look.
"What put you on to her in the first place? You wouldn't have tricked her without a nudge, without a suspicious hint."
"Her tan," Pitt answered. "It was shallow-not burned deep like one acquired after years and months spent in a tropic jungle."
"You, sir, are very observant," Kippmann murmured thoughtfully. "But why… why bother to trip up someone you barely knew?"
"Partly for the same reason I'm standing here in this ridiculous wolf suit," Pitt said grimly. "I volunteered for your little manhunt for two reasons. One, I've got a score to even with Rondheim and Kelly, no more, no less.
Second, I'm still Special Projects Director for NUMA, and as such, my primary duty is to obtain the plans for Fyrie's undersea mineral probe. That's why I conned Kirsti-she knows where the blueprints are hidden. Boy something I shouldn't have, it gave me a wedge, to her."
Kippmann nodded. "Now I understand." He sat on a desk and toyed with a letter opener.