"Why don't you sit down, Jim, before you wear out the carpet?"
He stopped and came over to her, placing a hand against her cheek. "Forgive me for ignoring you, but I've got a situation with two of my people down in Nicaragua." He sat down heavily beside her. "What if I told you that our east coast and Europe were going to suffer severe winters the likes of which we've never seen."
"We can always survive a bad year."
"I'm talking centuries."
She set her glass on a patio table. "Certainly not with global warming."
"With global warming," he said firmly.
The phone rang and he marched in and picked it up from his penthouse office desk.
"Yes?"
"Rudi, Admiral," came Gunn's voice. "Still no word."
"Have they made entry?"
"We've heard nothing since they left on a jet ski across the lake from Granada."
"I don't like it," Sandecker muttered. "We should have heard from them by now."
"We should leave jobs like this to the intelligence agencies," said Gunn.
"I agree, but there was no stopping Dirk and Al."
"They'll make it," Gunn said reassuringly. "They always do."
"Yes," Sandecker said heavily. "But someday the law of averages will catch up and their luck will run out."
39
The guards were as surprised to see the group exit the elevator as Pitt was to see them. Three wore the blue jumpsuits of security guards, the fourth was a woman dressed in green. Pitt guessed she was of a higher rank than the men. Unlike the others, she carried no assault rifle. Her only weapon was a small automatic pistol in a belt holster on her hip. Pitt quickly took the initiative. He walked up to the woman.
"Are you in charge here?" he asked, in a voice calm and authoritative.
The woman, taken back momentarily, stared at him. "I'm in charge. What are you doing here?"
Relieved that she spoke English, he motioned to the Lowenhardts. "We found these two wandering around the fourth floor. Nobody seemed to know how they came to be there. We were told to turn them over to the guards on the roof. That's you."
The woman studied the Lowenhardts, who were looking at Pitt with growing shock and fear in their eyes.
"I know these people. They are scientists who work on the project. They're supposed to be confined to their quarters."
"There was a disturbance, a vehicle caught fire. They must have escaped during the commotion."
The female guard, looking confused, did not question how the Lowenhardts came to be in the headquarters building. "Who told you to bring them to the roof?"
Pitt shrugged. "A lady in a lavender jumpsuit."
The three guards, with their assault rifles held at the ready, appeared to relax. They seemed to buy the story, even if their superior was doubtful. "What are your work positions?" she demanded.
Giordino took a few steps toward the helicopter, turned his head away and looked as if he was admiring it. Pitt stared directly into the woman's eyes. "We work in the tunnels. Our supervisor sent us topside for two days' rest." Out of the corner of one eye he saw Giordino slowly, imperceptibly, move behind the guards.
The story worked before. He hoped it would work again. It did. The woman nodded.
"That doesn't explain why you were in headquarters this time of night."
"We've been ordered back down tomorrow and were instructed to come here and pick up our passes."
He missed on that one. "What passes? I know of no passes issued to tunnel workers. Your identification badges should suffice."
"I only do what I'm told," he said, acting irritated. "Do you want to take charge of these prisoners or not?"
Before she could reply, Giordino had his big gun in one hand. In one lightning motion, he lashed the barrel against one guard's head and then swung it hard against the head of the second guard. The third removed his hands from his rifle when he saw the gaping muzzle of Giordino's .50 caliber automatic aimed between his eyes.
"That's much better," Pitt said quietly. He turned to Giordino and smiled. "A credible piece of work."
Giordino returned a slight grin. "I thought so."
"Take their guns."
The woman's hand crept toward her holstered pistol.
Pitt said, "I wouldn't if I were you."
The female guard's face was a mask of wrath, but she was smart enough to know the odds were against her. She raised her hands as Giordino removed her gun. "Who are you?" she hissed.
"I wish people would stop asking me that." Pitt pointed at the guard still standing. "Remove your uniform. Quickly!"
The guard quickly unzipped the front of his jumpsuit and stepped out of it. Pitt did the same with his black suit. Then he slipped into the blue one.
"Down on the roof next to your men," Pitt ordered the woman and the half-naked guard.
"What are you up to?" Giordino inquired casually.
"Like the airlines, I hate taking off with a half-empty aircraft."
Without further probing, Giordino knew what Pitt had on his mind. He stood in front and over his prisoners so they could see his gun muzzle swing from head to head. He looked at the Lowenhardts. "Time to board," he said firmly.
Obediently and without complaint, the two elderly people climbed into the helicopter, as Pitt walked toward the elevator. A few seconds later, the door closed and he was gone.
Inside an office penthouse on the tenth floor below the roof stretched a magnificent flow of rooms. The lavender suite, as it was appropriately named, was decorated as if swept by a tidal wave of the same color. The enormous ceilings were trimmed around the edges in lavender, with large domes painted in scenes depicting strange religious rituals and dances performed by women in flowing dresses under backgrounds of scenic forests surrounding lakes and mythical mountains. The vast wall-to-wall carpet was lavender flecked with gold, its thickness almost ankle-deep. The furniture was carved from white marble shaped like throne chairs often displayed on a Grecian vase.
They were padded with thick lavender cushions. The chandeliers were coated with a deep iridescent lavender, their crystals surrounding the lights dyed to match. The walls were done in the same universal color, but in a rich velvet. High massive curtains were cut and draped from the same material. Sensual, exotic, decadent, a true dream fantasy, the effect stunned the eye of the viewer far beyond any sight they might have ever imagined.
Two women were seated on a long marble couch, reclined luxuriously in massively thick cushions. An ornately sculptured glass table stood between them with a bucket containing a vintage champagne whose bottle bore a custom lavender label. One of the women was attired in a golden gown, the other was dressed in purple. Their long red hair matched precisely, as if they used the same bottle of dye and same hairstylist. If they had not moved, an observer might have thought they were part of the outrageous decor.
The lady in purple sipped her champagne from a tulip-stemmed glass and said in a voice devoid of inflection: "Our timetable is on schedule. Ten million units of Macha will be ready for retail sale by the first snowfall. After that, our friends in China will have their assembly lines operating at full production. Their new factories will go on line by the end of summer and production will soar to two million units a month."
"Are distribution channels in place?" asked the lady in gold, who was devastatingly beautiful.
"Warehouses either constructed or rented throughout Europe and the northeastern United States are already receiving shipments from China's cargo fleet."
"We were fortunate that Druantia was able to step into her father's shoes and increase our desperate need for platinum."