Von Till looked at Pitt in puzzled suspicion. “Go on, Major. I find your assumptions extremely fascinating.”
“You’re running on a tight time schedule, and you’re running scared. Under our feet, beneath this dock, rests a hundred and thirty tons of heroin — loaded into the sub at Shanghai and carried across the Indian Ocean and through the Suez Canal by a Minerva Lines freighter. I have to hand it to you; anyone else would have tried to sneak the heroin into the United States through the backdoor without fanfare. Not so Bruno von Till. BBD&O together with J. Walter Thompson and all the other agencies on Madison Avenue couldn’t have created a more professional job of advertising the Queen Artemisia’s illegal cargo and final destination. It was shrewd thinking. Even though INTERPOL agents have finally unriddled your underwater transportation, it makes little difference. All their eyes are still trained on the Queen Artenusia.
Do you follow me?”
They stood mute and offered no affirmative or negative reply. “As Darius has undoubtedly informed you,” Pitt went on, “Inspector Zacynthus and the Bureau of Narcotics are currently wasting their time and efforts in preparing a trap for the ship when it reaches Chicago. I shudder to think of the four letter words that will fall on Lake Michigan when they discover nothing but the ship’s crew wearing their best actor’s smiles and the holds filled with nothing but the cocoa from Ceylon.”
Pitt paused and shifted his throbbing leg to a more comfortable position. He noticed that Knight and Thomas had joined Woodson below the hatch. Then he continued.
“It must be a great source of satisfaction to know that INTERPOL has taken your bait, hook, line and sinker. They’re totally unaware that the sub and the heroin were dropped here last night in order to be transferred to the next Minerva Line’s ship that happens past; which, by the way, should be the Queen Jocasta, bound for New Orleans with a cargo of Turkish tobacco and due to drop anchor a mile off shore in approximately ten minutes. That’s why you’re running scared, von Till. Time has caught up with you, and you have to gamble on a rendezvous with your ship in broad daylight,”
“You have a vivid imagination,” von Till said contemptuously. But Pitt could see the lines of concern in the old man’s face. “There is absolutely no way you can prove your wild theories.”
Pitt ignored his words. He said: “Why should I bother? I’m going to die in a few minutes anyway.”
“You have a point. Major,” von Till said slowly. “I compliment you. Your perception is excellent. I see no harm in admitting that you are correct in everything you have said. with one exception: The Queen Jocasta will not dock in New Orleans. At the last minute, it will alter course for Galveston, Texas.”
The three men on the other sub had removed the guns from the Albatros and mysteriously dropped out of sight. Hersong stepped off the dock and passed a crate through the hatch to Spencer. who had now vanished into the hull with Thomas, Knight and Woodson. Pitt spoke quickly. He needed every second now.
“One question before Darius gets carried away. Out of old world courtesy. you can’t deny me that.”
Darius stood there. his evil face masked with murderous intent. He looked like a sadistic kid in a biology class who could hardly wait to dissect a frog.
“Very well, Major,” von Till said conversationally.
“What is it?”
“How will the heroin be distributed after it's unloaded in Galveston?”
Von Till smiled. “One of my lesser known business ventures is a small fleet of fishing boats; not a financially rewarding venture, I might add, but one that becomes quite useful at times. At the moment, my boats are dropping their nets in the Gulf of Mexico, awaiting my signal When it comes, they will raise their nets and arrive in port at the exact same moment as the Queen Jocarta. The rest is simple: the ship releases the submarine, which is in turn led by the fishing boats to a cannery. The cargo is then unloaded under the building, and the heroin is packed into cans labeled catfood. I must say, it is ironic; all that powder being shipped into every one of your fifty states in catfood cans. The joke is on the Bureau of Narcotics. By the time their suspicions are aroused, it will be too late. The heroin will have already been received and carefully hidden. Admit it, Major. doesn’t the prospect of all that heroin being smelled, swallowed, or injected by millions of your own countrymen shock your holier-than-thou Yankee moral standards?”
Now Pitt was smiling. “It might, if it ever came to pass.”
Von Till’s eyes narrowed. Pitt wasn’t acting like a doomed man. Something very definitely was off key.
“It will come to pass. I promise you that.”
“Millions of people,” Pitt said wonderingly. “You stand there with a smile on your ugly mouth and openly boast of the misery you’re going to extract from millions of people for a few lousy dollars.”
“Hardly a few dollars. Major. I think half a billion dollars would be a closer figure.
“You’ll never live to count it, much less spend it.”
“And who is going to stop me? You, Major? Inspector Zacynthus? Possibly a lightning bolt from the sky?”
“Wishing will make it so.”
“I’ve had enough of his stupid words,” Darius said bitterly. “Now — now let him pay for his arrogance.”
The supremely grotesque face was a cloud of black malevolence. Pitt didn’t like the look he didn’t like the look at all. He could almost feel Darius’ finger tighten around the trigger of the Luger.
“Come now,” Pitt said slowly. “Killing me now wouldn’t be sporting. My eleven minutes aren’t up yet.”
Actually to Pitt, it seemed he had been talking for hours.
Von Till stood silent for several seconds and toyed with his cigarette Then he said: “There is one point that intrigues me, Major. Why did you kidnap my niece?”
Pitt’s lips tightened to a sly grin. “To begin with, she’s not your niece.”
Darius’ face went blank. “You — you could not have known.”
“I knew,” said Pitt evenly. “Unlike you, von Till, I didn’t have the benefit of an informer, but I knew. All in all, Zacynthus gave it a good try, but his plan was headed for failure right from the start. He hid the genuine niece away in a safe place in England and found
another girl who resembled her. They hardly had to be
exact doubles since you hadn’t laid eyes on the real Teri in over twenty years. Zacynthus also carefully planned his Mata Hari's cross country vacation to look like nothing more than an innocent surprise holiday visit by a loving relative.”
Darius stared at von Till, his massive jaw seeming to grind Pitt’s revelation to pieces, Von Till’s expression didn’t change. He just slowly nodded in apparent understanding.
“Too bad,” Pitt said, “it was all for nothing. You weren’t the least bit surprised. Darius had seen to that.
At that point, you had two choices; you could either expose the girl as an impostor and throw her out, or you could play along and feed her false information. Quite naturally your devious mind chose the latter.
You were in your element. You felt like a puppeteer pulling strings. You could now play the girl and Darius on the ends against Zacynthus and Zeno in the middle.”
“An irresistible situation,” said von Till. “Do you agree?”
“You couldn’t miss,” Pitt went on calmly “From the time of her arrival until Giordino and I grabbed her from the villa, the girl’s every move was closely watched by your chauffeur. Under the guise of a sort of bodyguard; Willie stuck with her like a leech. It must have been entertaining work, especially when she sunbathed on the beach. At that, her passion for early morning swimming was nothing but a means of making contact with Zacynthus. It was the only opportunity you gave her to pass him information, all of it worthless. How you must have laughed, knowing she was swallowing every bit of crap you fed her. Then something happened and Zacynthus began to get wise. Arriving late for their rendezvous one morning, he probably spotted Willie lurking in the bushes, both eyes unerringly focused on the girl in her bikini.