He swung on his heels and walked out the door to the helicopter pad. Not a bad performance, he thought to himself. Not a bad performance at all. He'd never be nominated for an Academy Award, but what the hell, his captive audience had thought it convincing and that's all that really mattered.
Jack Sturgis was a short, thin man with sad drooping eyes, the kind women considered bedroom eyes. He gripped a long cigarette holder between his teeth and jutted his chin forward in a show reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt. He had just climbed down from the cockpit of the helicopter and seemed to be groping for something under the landing gear when Pitt stepped onto the pad.
Sturgis looked up. "Any passengers?" he asked.
"Not this trip."
Sturgis nonchalantly flicked an ash from his cigarette holder. "I knew I should have stayed cuddled in my warm, cozy cabin on the Capricorn. " He sighed. "Flying in the face of hurricanes will be the death of me yet."
"You'd better get going," Pitt said. "The wind will be on us any time now."
"Makes no difference." Sturgis shrugged indifferently. "I'm not going anywhere."
Pitt looked at him. "What do you mean by that?"
"I've been had, that's what I mean." He gestured up at the rotor blades. The two-foot tip of one was hanging down like a limp wrist. "Somebody around here resents whirlybirds."
"Did you strike a bulkhead on landing?"
Sturgis put on a hurt expression. "I do not, repeat, do not strike objects upon landing." He found what he was searching for and straightened up. "Here, see for yourself; some son of a bitch tossed a hammer into my rotor blades."
Pitt took the hammer and examined it. The rubber hand-grip showed a deep gash where it had come in contact with the blade.
"And, after all I've done for you people," Sturgis said, "this is how you show your appreciation."
"Sorry, Sturgis, but I suggest you forget any aspirations of ever becoming a television detective. You sadly lack an analytical mind, and you're prone to leap to false conclusions."
"Get off it, Pitt. Hammers don't fly through the air without a means of propulsion. One of your people must have tossed it when I was landing."
"Wrong. I can vouch for the whereabouts of every soul on board this ship, and no one was anywhere near the helicopter pad in the last ten minutes. Whoever your little destructive friend is I'm afraid you brought him with you."
"Do you think I'm a dead-brain? Don't you think I'd know if I carried a passenger? Besides, now you're insinuating a suicidal act. If that hammer had been thrown one minute sooner, when we were a hundred feet in the air, you and your crew would have had an ugly mess to clean up."
"Wrong nomenclature," Pitt said. "Not passenger, but stowaway. And, he's no dead-brain either. He waited until your wheels kissed the deck before he made his play and escaped through the cargo hatch. God only knows where he's hiding now. A thorough search of fifty miles of pitch dark passageways and compartments is impossible."
Sturgis's face suddenly paled. "Christ, our intruder is still in the copter."
"Don't be ridiculous. He beat it the instant you landed."
"No, no. It's possible to throw a hammer out and up through an open cabin window into the rotor blades, but escape is something else again."
"I'm listening," Pitt said quietly.
"The cargo compartment hatch is electronically operated and can only be activated from a switch in the control cabin."
"Is there another exit?"
"Only a door to the control cabin."
Pitt studied the sealed cargo hatch for a long moment, then turned back to Sturgis, his eyes cold. "Is this any way to treat an unexpected guest? I think the appropriate thing to do is for us to invite him into the fresh air."
Sturgis became rooted to the deck as he spotted the Colt forty-five automatic, complete with silencer, that had suddenly materialized in Pitt's right hand.
"Sure . . . sure. . " he stammered. "If you say so."
Sturgis clambered up the ladder to the control cabin, leaned in and pushed a switch. The electric motors made a whirring sound and the contoured seven-foot-by-seven-foot door rose open and upward over the helicopter's fuselage. Even before the locking pins clicked into position, Sturgis was back on the deck and standing warily behind Pitt's broad shoulders.
Half a minute after the door had opened, Pitt was still standing there. He stood there for what Sturgis thought was a lifetime without moving a muscle, breathing slowly and evenly, and listening. The only sounds were the slap of the waves against the hull, the low whine of the steadily building wind over the Titanic's superstructure and the murmur of voices that carried through the gymnasium door, not the sounds he was tuned in for. When he was satisfied there were no sounds of feet scraping, rustling of clothing, or other tones relating to menace or stealth, he stepped into the helicopter.
The darkened skies outside dimmed the interior and Pitt was uneasily aware that he was perfectly silhouetted against the dusk light. At first glance, the compartment seemed empty, but then Pitt felt a tapping on his shoulder and noted that Sturgis was pointing past him at a tarpaulin tucked around a humanlike shape.
"I neatly folded and stowed that tarp not more than an hour ago," Sturgis whispered.
Swiftly, Pitt reached down and dragged the tarpaulin away with his left hand while aiming the Colt as steadily as a park statue with his right.
A figure enveloped in a heavy foul-weather jacket lay huddled on the cargo deck, the eyes loosely closed in a state of unconsciousness that was obviously related to the ugly, bleeding, and purplish bruise just above the hairline.
Sturgis stood rooted in the shadows in shocked immobility, his widening eyes blinking rapidly, still adjusting to the diminishing light. Then he rubbed his chin lightly with his fingers and shook his head in disbelief. "Good lord," he muttered in awe. "Do you know who that is?"
"I do," Pitt answered evenly. "Her name is Seagram, Dana Seagram."
58
With appalling abruptness, the sky above the Mikhail Kurkov went pitch dark . . . great black clouds rolled overhead, obliterating the evening stars, and the wind returned and rose to a wailing gale of forty miles an hour, breaking the edges of the wave crests and carrying the foam in well-defined streaks toward the northeast.
Inside the large wheelhouse of the Soviet ship it was warm and comfortable. Prevlov stood beside Parotkin, who was watching the Titanic's blip on radar.
"When I took command of this ship," Parotkin said, as though lecturing a schoolboy, "I was under the impression my orders were to carry out research and surveillance programs. Nothing was said about conducting an out-and-out military operation."
Prevlov held up a protesting hand. "Please, Captain, you forget the words military and operation are unmentionable. The little venture upon which we are about to embark is a perfectly legal civilian activity known in the western countries as a change in management."
"Blatant piracy is closer to the truth," Parotkin said. "And what do you call those ten marines you so kindly added to my crew when we left port? Stockholders?"
"Again, not marines, but rather civilian crewmen."
"Of course," Parotkin said dryly. "And every one armed to the teeth."