Now the girl shrieked, but neither man seemed to care. They both waited patiently until she froze into silence.
“Good morning, Chief,” said Pitt cheerfully. “Sorry to inconvenience you.”
John Merchant blinked in the light and focused his eyes on his intruder. “My guards will have heard the screams and come on the run,” he said calmly.
“I doubt that. Knowing you, I should judge that feminine screams coming from your living quarters are considered a nightly occurrence by your neighbors.”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“How quickly they forget.”
Merchant squinted and then his mouth dropped open in recognition. His face registered abject disbelief. “You can’t―be ... you can’t be ... Dirk Pitt!”
As if prompted, Maeve and Giordino came into the room. They stood there behind Pitt, saying nothing, looking at the two people in bed as if watching a staged drama.
“This has to be a nightmare,” Merchant gasped.
“Do you bleed in your dreams?” asked Pitt, slipping his hand under Merchant’s pillow, retrieving the nine-millimeter automatic the security chief was reaching for and throwing it to Giordino. He thought the slimy little man would come around to accepting the situation, but Merchant was too stunned at seeing the ghosts of three people he thought were dead.
“I saw you cast adrift with my own eyes, before the storm struck,” Merchant said in a dull monotone. “How is it possible you all survived?”
“We were swallowed by a whale,” said Giordino, pulling the window curtains closed. “We upset his tummy, and you can guess what happened next.”
“You people are crazy. Give up your weapons. You’ll never get off the island alive.”
Pitt placed the muzzle of his assault rifle against Merchant’s forehead. “The only words I want to hear from you concern the location of Miss Fletcher’s sons. Where are they?”
A spark of defiance gleamed in Merchant’s eyes. “I won’t tell you anything.”
“Then you will surely die,” said Pitt coldly.
“Strange words from a marine engineer and an oceanographer, a man who sets women and children on a pedestal, and who is respected for his word and integrity.”
“I applaud your homework.”
“You won’t kill me,” said Merchant, regaining control of his emotions. “You are not a professional assassin, nor a man who has the stomach for murder.”
Pitt gave a casual shrug. “I’d venture to say that one of your guards, the one I threw over the cliffs about half an hour ago, would disagree.”
Merchant stared at Pitt impassively, not certain whether to believe him. “I do not know what Mr. Dorsett has done with his grandsons.”
Pitt moved the rifle barrel from Merchant’s head to one knee. “Maeve, count to three.”
“One,” she began, as composed as if she were counting lumps of sugar in a cup of tea. “Two ... three.”
Pitt pulled the trigger and a bullet smashed through Merchant’s kneecap. Merchant’s mistress went into another fit of screaming until Giordino clamped his hand over her mouth.
“Can we please have some quiet? You’re cracking the plaster.”
A complete transformation came over Merchant. The evil malignity of the repellant little man was suddenly replaced with a demeanor marked by pain and terror. His mouth twisted as he spoke. “My knee, you’ve shattered my knee!” he rasped in horror.
Pitt placed the muzzle against one of Merchant’s elbows. “I’m in a hurry. Unless you wish to be doubly maimed, I suggest you speak, and speak the truth or you’ll have a tough time brushing your teeth from now on.”
“Miss Fletcher’s sons work in the mines with the other laborers. They’re kept with the others in the guarded camp.”
Pitt turned to Maeve. “It’s your call.”
Maeve looked into Merchant’s eyes, her face taut with emotion. “He’s lying. Jack Ferguson, my father’s overseer, is in charge of the boys. They would never be out of his sight.”
“Where does he hang out?” asked Giordino.
“Ferguson lives in a guest house beside the mansion so he can be at my father’s beck and call,” said Maeve.
Pitt smiled coldly at Merchant. “Sorry, John, wrong answer. That will cost you an elbow.”
“No, please, no!” Merchant muttered through teeth clenched from the pain. “You win. The twins are kept in Ferguson’s quarters when they’re not working in the mines.”
Maeve stepped forward until she was standing over Merchant, distraught and grieved at envisioning the suffering her sons were enduring. Her self-control crumbled as she slapped him sharply, several times across the face. “Six-year-old boys forced to work in the mines! What kind of sadistic monsters are you?”
Giordino wrapped his arms gently around Maeve’s waist and pulled her back into the center of the room, as she broke into anguished sobbing.
Pitt’s face reflected sorrow and anger. He moved the muzzle to within a millimeter of Merchant’s left eye. “One more question, friend John. Where sleeps the helicopter’s pilot?”
“He’s in the mining company’s medical clinic with a broken arm,” Merchant answered sullenly. “You can forget about forcing him to fly you from the island.”
Pitt nodded and smiled knowingly at Giordino. “Who needs him?” He looked about the room and nodded toward the closet. “We’ll leave them in there.”
“Do you intend to murder us?” asked Merchant slowly.
“I’d sooner shoot skunks,” Pitt pointed out. “But since you brought it up, you and your little friend will be tied up, gagged and locked in the closet.”
Merchant’s fear was obvious from the tic at one corner of his mouth. “We’ll suffocate in there.”
“I can shoot you both now. Take your pick.”
Merchant said no more and offered no resistance as he and the girl were bound with the bed sheets, torn into strips, and unceremoniously dumped into the closet. Giordino moved half the furniture in the bedroom against the door to keep it from being forced open from the inside.
“We’ve got what we came for,” said Pitt. “Let’s be on our way to the old homestead.”
“You said I could raid the refrigerator,” protested Giordino. “My stomach is going through rejection pains.”
“No time for that now,” said Pitt. “You can gorge later.”
Giordino shook his head sorrowfully as he stuffed Merchant’s nine-millimeter automatic inside his belt. “Why do I feel as though there’s a conspiracy afoot to deplete my body sugar?”
Seven o’clock in the morning. A blue sky, unlimited visibility and a sea with low swells rolling like silent demons toward unseen shores where they would crash and die. It was a normal day like most days in the tropical waters off the Hawaiian Islands, warm with more than a trace of humidity and a light breeze, generally referred to as the trade winds. It was a Saturday, a day when the beaches at Waikiki and the windward side of the island were slowly coming alive with early birds awake for an early morning dip. Soon they would be followed by thousands of local residents and vacationers looking forward to leisurely hours of swimming in surf subdued by offshore reefs, and sunbathing on heated sand later in the day. Lulled by the relaxing atmosphere, none were remotely aware that this might be their last day on earth.
The Glomar Explorer, only one of her big twin screws driving under full power, pushed steadily toward the site of the deadly acoustic convergence, the sound waves already hurtling through the sea from the four sources. She should have been running a good half hour late, but Chief Engineer Toft had pushed his crew to and beyond the edge of exhaustion. He cursed and pleaded with the engine that strained against its mounts, bound to the only operating shaft, and coaxed another half knot out of it. He swore to get the ship to its meeting with destiny with time to spare, and by God he was doing it.