Flood Tide

  It never came.

  The second killer failed to react because he was searching for Pitt inside an antique Pullman coach parked at one side of the hangar on a pair of rails. The car had once been part of the crack express train called the Manhattan Limited that ran between New York and Quebec, Canada, between 1912 and 1914. Pitt had acquired the old coach after finding it in a cave. The killer barely perceived the brief flash of light through a glass window of the Pullman before hearing the explosive roar of the shotgun. By the time he rushed to the rear platform, the hangar had been plunged back into blackness. He was too late to hear the impact on the floor of his accomplice's body or know what target to fire at. He crouched behind a massive Daimler convertible and panned his night-vision goggles around and beneath the maze of parked cars. As he peered through the binocular eyepiece connected to a single objective lens that was attached to his head with straps, giving him the look of a robotic Cyclops, the pitch-black interior of the hangar appeared bathed in a green light that distinguished surrounding objects. Twenty feet ahead of him he spotted the body of his accomplice crumpled on the cold, hard floor, a pool of blood spreading around the head. Any confusion as to why their prey had willingly and knowingly walked into the trap evaporated. He now realized Pitt had somehow armed himself with a weapon. They were warned that their target was a dangerous man, and yet they had still badly underestimated him.

  It was essential for Pitt to make a move while he had an advantage, and move as quickly as possible before the remaining killer pinpointed his location. Pitt made no attempt at stealth. Speed was what counted. He scrambled around the front end of the cars toward the entrance door, keeping low and using the wheels and tires to shield his movement from the view of a night scope probing the floor beneath. He reached the door, threw it open and fell back behind a car as bullets sped through the opening into the night outside. Then Pitt crawled along the wall of the hangar until he could huddle against the wheel of a 1939 540-K Mercedes-Benz sedan.

  The move was foolhardy and reckless, but he only paid a small price. Pitt could feel blood streaming from his left forearm where the flesh had been nicked by a bullet. Had the remaining assassin been given five long seconds to divine Pitt's intention, he would have never rushed headlong toward the door in the certain belief that his quarry had tried to escape from the hangar.

  Pitt heard the soft drumming of supple rubber soles against concrete. Then a figure dressed from the top of the head to his feet in black became outlined in the doorway by the dim light outside on the electrical pole. All's fair in love and war, Pitt thought, as he pulled the trigger and cut down the killer with a shotgun blast through the back below the right shoulder.

  The arms flew upward and outward, his tactical machine pistol clattering to the walkway in front of the hangar. The killer stood there a moment, tore off his night-vision goggles and slowly turned. He stared disbelievingly into Pitt's face as the hunted approached the hunter and saw the muzzle of vicious-looking shotgun aimed at his chest. The shocked realization of his deadly blunder, the awareness that his death was only seconds away, seemed more to anger than frighten him. The bitter, stunned expression in his now visible eyes gave Pitt a chill. It was not the look of a man afraid to die, it was the desperate look of a man who had failed his mission. He staggered toward Pitt in a hopeless gesture of tenacity, the lips that were faintly visible through the open slit in his black hood hideous in a blood-flecked snarl.

  Pitt did not send another burst from the shotgun into the assassin's body. Nor did he use his gun as a club. He stepped forward and lashed out with one foot, kicking the man's legs out from under him and sending him crashing heavily to the ground.

  Picking up the killer's weapon, Pitt did not immediately recognize it as Chinese-manufactured, but he was impressed with its advanced innovations: a plastic frame with integral electro-optics, a fifty-round magazine in line with the bore, and cased, telescoped cartridges with the ballistics of a rifle shell. It was a handgun for the twenty-first century.

  He stepped back inside the hangar and switched on the lights again. Despite the harrowing ordeal, Pitt felt strangely unaffected. He walked the aisle separating the cars until he stood below the balcony of his apartment. Then he stared down at the second killer's body. The partner of the man he dropped in the doorway was as dead as a rat in a sprung trap. One of Pitt's shots had missed, but the other had taken off the top of the killer's head. Not a sight to remember at the dinner table.

  Wearily, Pitt climbed a circular metal staircase and entered his apartment. There was no sense in calling 911. He expected federal marshals to come bounding up the road any minute. Methodically, he rinsed a glass with water, shook it partially dry and inverted it in a bowl of salt. Then he added crushed ice, a sliced lime, and two shots from a bottle of Don Julio silver tequila. Relaxing in a leather sofa, he savored the drink like a thirst-stricken bedouin who staggered onto an oasis.

  Five minutes and a second tequila later, Admiral Sandecker arrived with a team of marshals. Pitt came down to the hangar floor and met them, drink in hand. "Good evening, Admiral, always good to see you."

  Sandecker grunted something appropriate and then nodded at the body beneath the apartment. "You really must learn to pick up after yourself." The voice was caustic, but there was no mistaking the concern in his eyes.

  Pitt smiled and shrugged. "The world needs murderers like it needs cancer."

  Sandecker noticed the streak of blood on Pitt's arm. "You took a hit."

  "Nothing a Band-Aid won't fix."

  "Let's have the story," demanded Sandecker, all preliminaries over. "Where did they come from?"

  "I haven't a clue. They were waiting for me."

  "A miracle they didn't kill you."

  "They didn't plan on me coming to the party prepared after I saw that my security system had been tampered with."

  Sandecker looked at Pitt cautiously. "You might have waited until I arrived with the marshals."

  Pitt motioned through the door toward the road and barren land outside the hangar. "If I made a run for it, they'd have cut me down before I got fifty yards. Better to go on the offensive. I felt my only chance was to do something quickly and catch them off balance."

  Sandecker stared at Pitt shrewdly. He knew his special projects director would never attempt anything without a solid reason. His eyes took in the bullet-riddled doorway. "I hope you know a good handyman."

  At that moment a man wearing casual clothes and a windbreaker over a ballistic armor vest with a Smith & Wesson model 442 .38 revolver in a shoulder holster approached. In one hand he held a hooded mask worn by the killer whom Pitt had dropped in the doorway. "Won't be easy to ID them. They were probably imported for the hit."

  Sandecker made the introduction. "Dirk, this is Mr. Peter Harper, executive associate commissioner of field operations for the Immigration and Naturalization Service."

  Harper shook Pitt's hand. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Pitt. It seems you had an unexpected homecoming."

  "A dubious surprise I wasn't counting on." Pitt was not at all sure he could warm to Harper. The associate commissioner of the INS struck him as a man who spent his spare time working algebra problems. Despite the fact he carried a weapon, Harper looked benign and scholastic. "There is a van parked a short distance from the hangar."

  "We already checked it out," said Harper. "It belongs to a rental-car agency. The name on the agreement is fictitious."

  "Who do you suspect was behind this?" Sandecker asked.

  "The name Qin Shang comes to mind," said Pitt. "I'm told he has a retaliatory nature."

  "The obvious choice," Sandecker agreed.

  "He won't be happy when he finds out his assassins failed," added Harper.

  Sandecker's expression turned foxlike. "I think it only appropriate that Dirk tell him in person."

  Pitt shook his head. "I hardly think that's a sensible idea. I'm persona non grata in Hong Kong."

  Sandecker and Harper exchange
d glances. Then Sandecker said, "Qin Shang saved you the trip. He recently arrived in Washington to grease his way out of any connection with Orion Lake. As a matter of fact, he's throwing a party at his residence in Chevy Chase to stroke congressmen and their staffers. If you hurry and dress, you can just make it."

  Pitt looked as if he'd been sandbagged. "I hope you're joking."

  "I was never more serious."

  "I believe the admiral makes a good case," said Harper. "You and Qin Shang should meet face-to-face."

  "Why? So he can provide a first-hand description of me to the next team he sends out to put me in a cemetery?"

  "No," said Harper seriously. "To let Qin Shang know that despite his wealth and power he can't outclass the United States government. The man is not infallible. If your appearance can shake him up, he probably won't get the word you're alive until you walk in on him. The shock just might make him mad enough to make a mistake in the future. And that's when we step in."

  "In essence you want me to create a chink in his armor."

  Harper nodded. "Exactly."

  "You realize, of course," said Pitt, "that what you're proposing will compromise my further involvement in investigating his illegal activities."

  "Think of yourself as a distraction," said Sandecker. "The more Qin Shang concentrates on you as a threat to his operations, the easier it will be for the INS and the other intelligence services to nail him to the cross."

  "Distraction hell. You want a decoy."

  Harper shrugged. "A rose by any other name."

  Pitt made as if to appear uneasy with the idea despite the fact it intrigued him. He thought of the bodies strewn on the bottom of Orion Lake, and the anger rose inside him like an uncontrollable flood. "Whatever it takes to hang the murdering scum."

  Harper sighed in relief, but Sandecker never doubted for an instant that Pitt would acquiesce. The admiral had never known Pitt to turn down a challenge, no matter how impossible. Some men were indifferent, impassive. It was difficult to tell what they were thinking. Not Pitt. Sandecker understood him like no other man except Al Giordino. To women he was a mystery, a man they could reach out and touch but never restrain. He knew there were two Dirk Pitts, one that could be tender, considerate and humorous, the other cold and ruthless as a winter storm. Unvaryingly competent to the point of brilliance, his perception of events and people was uncanny. Pitt never made a conscious error. He had a knack for doing the right thing during incredibly difficult circumstances that was almost inhuman.

  Harper was unable to read Pitt. All he saw was a marine engineer who had unbelievably killed two professional assassins who had come to murder him. "So you'll do it."

  "I'll meet Qin Shang, but I wish someone would tell me how I'm going to crash his party without an invitation."

  "It's all been arranged," explained Harper. "A good agent always has connections with the company that prints invitations."

  "You were pretty sure of yourself."

  "I admit I wasn't, but the admiral here assured me that you never turned down free drinks and food."

  Pitt threw Sandecker a peevish look. "The admiral has made victimization an art form."

  "I've even taken the liberty of arranging an escort for you," Harper continued. "A most attractive lady who will back you up in case of trouble."

  "A baby-sitter," Pitt muttered, rolling his eyes upward. "As a matter of pure optimism I have to ask if she's seen combat."

  "I'm told she shot down two aircraft and saved your ass on the Orion River."

  "Julia Lee."

  "The same."

  Pitt's lips stretched into a wide grin. "It looks as if the evening won't turn out to be a bust after all."

  25

  PlTT KNOCKED on the door of the address given him by Peter Harper. After a short wait, it was opened by Julia Lee. She stood radiant in a white silk cashmere dress that came slightly below the knees with open shoulders and back to the curve above her hips and was held up by a thin strap around the neck. Her black hair was swept back in a wrapped ponytail high on the head with spiky ends. Her only jewelry was a thin gold chain around her waist and a gold cuff necklace. Her legs were nude, her feet showing in open gold shoes.

  Her eyes widened and she murmured, "Dirk, Dirk Pitt!"

  "Oh, I hope so," he replied with a devilish grin.

  After her initial shock at seeing Pitt standing there resplendent in a tuxedo with vest and gold watch chain, she recovered and threw herself against him, her arms encircling his neck. He was so surprised he barely caught himself from tumbling over backward down the steps. Impetuously, she kissed him hard on the mouth. Now it was Pitt's turn for his eyes to widen. He had never expected such a spontaneous reception.

  "I thought I was the one who said I'd kiss you full on the mouth when next we meet." Reluctantly, he gripped Julia by the upper arms and gently eased her away. "Do you greet all your blind dates in that manner?"

  Suddenly, she cast her dove-gray eyes to the ground shyly. "I don't know what came over me. Seeing you came as a shock. I wasn't told who was escorting me to Qin Shang's party. Peter Harper only said he arranged for a tall, dark, handsome man to act as my backup."

  "The dirty sneak led me to believe that you were my backup. He should have been a theatrical producer. I'll bet he's drooling in anticipation of Qin Shang's reaction when the two people who queered his operation at Orion Lake walk in uninvited to his party."

  "I hope you're not disappointed at having to escort me. Under all this makeup, I still look pretty awful."

  He gently lifted her chin until he could look down into her misty eyes. He might have said something witty and clever, but it wasn't the moment. "About as disappointed as a man who has discovered a diamond mine."

  "I didn't know you could say nice things to a girl."

  "You wouldn't believe the hordes of women my silver tongue has seduced."

  "Liar," she said softly as her lips broke into a smile.

  "Enough of this endearing talk," he said, releasing her. "We'd better get a move on before the food runs out."

  After Julia briefly returned inside the house to find her purse and coat, Pitt led her to the stately and majestic machine parked at the curb in front of the townhouse where she was staying with an old sorority sister from college. She stared in open astonishment at the mammoth car with its big chrome wire wheels and wide white wall tires.

  "Good Lord!" she exclaimed. "What kind of a car are we going in?"

  "A nineteen-twenty-nine Duesenberg," answered Pitt. "Since we've been ordered to crash a party thrown by one of the world's richest men, I thought it only fitting and proper that we arrive in style."

  "I've never ridden in a car this grand," said Julia admiringly as she slid onto the soft tan leather seat. She marveled at the hood that seemed to stretch halfway down the block as Pitt closed the door and came around behind the big steering wheel. "I've never heard of a Duesenberg."

  "The Model J Duesenbergs were the finest examples of American automaking," Pitt explained. "Manufactured from nineteen-twenty-eight until nineteen-thirty-six, they were considered by many automobile connoisseurs as the handsomest cars- ever built. Only about four hundred eighty chassis and engines came out of the factory and were sent to the most esteemed coachmakers in the country who produced magnificent designs. This car was custom-bodied by the Walter M. Murphy Company in Pasadena, California, and styled as a convertible sedan. Not cheap, they sold as high as twenty thousand dollars when the Ford Model A sold for around four hundred. They were owned by the wealthy celebrities of their day, particularly the Hollywood crowd, who bought Duesenbergs as a show of pride and prestige. If you drove a Duesy, you had made it big-time."

  "She's beautiful," said Julia, admiring the artistically flowing lines. "She must be fast."

  "The engine was an outgrowth of the Duesenberg racing engines. A straight eight-cylinder engine displacing four hundred twenty cubic inches, it produced two hundred sixty-five horsepower when most engines at
the time put out less than seventy. Although this engine doesn't have the supercharger that was installed on later models, I made a few modifications when I restored the car. Under the right conditions she could touch one hundred forty miles an hour."

  "I'll take your word for it without a demonstration."

  "A pity we can't drive with the top down, but it's a cool night and I put it up to protect milady's hair."

  "A woman loves a considerate man."

  "I always aim to please."

  She looked at the flat windshield and noticed a small hole in one corner of the glass with tiny cracks spreading from it. "Is that a bullet hole?"

  "A souvenir from a couple of Qin Shang's flunkies."