She was both surprised and pleased at his behavior. She thought he held no affection for her. Now it was written in his eyes. "You couldn't have known how much I needed you," she said, her voice barely audible above the music.
He came around the table and sat beside her. "I know now," he said solemnly.
Her face turned to avoid his gaze. "You could not begin to understand the scrape I'm in."
Pitt took Maeve's hand in his. It was the first time he had deliberately touched her. "I had a nice little chat with Boudicca," he said with a slight sardonic grin. "She told me everything."
Her poise and grace seemed to crumble. "You? Boudicca? How is that possible?"
He stood and gently pulled her from her chair. "Why don't we dance, and I'll tell you all about it later."
As if by magic, here he was, holding her tightly, pressing her close as she responded and burrowed into his body. He closed his eyes momentarily as he inhaled the aroma of her perfume. The scent of his masculine aftershave, no cologne for Pitt, spread through her like ripples on a mountain lake. They danced cheek to cheek as the orchestra played Henry Mancini's "Moon River."
Maeve softly began singing the words. "Moon River, wider than a mile. I'm crossing you in style someday." Suddenly, she stiffened and pushed him back slightly. "You know about my sons?"
"What are their names?"
"Sean and Michael."
"Your father is holding Sean and Michael hostage on Gladiator Island so he can extort from you information on any breakthroughs by NUMA on the slaughter at sea."
Maeve stared up at him in confusion, but before she could ask any further questions, he pulled her close again. After a few moments he could feel her body sag as she began to cry softly. "I feel so ashamed. I don't know where to turn."
"Think only of the moment," he said tenderly. "The rest will work itself out."
Her relief and pleasure at being with him pushed aside her immediate problems, and she began murmuring the lyrics of "Moon River" again. "We're after the same rainbow's end, waitin' round the bend, my huckleberry friend, Moon River and me." The music faded and came to an end. She leaned back against his arm, which was around her waist, and smiled through the tears. "That's you."
He gave her a sideways look. "Who?"
"My huckleberry friend, Dirk Pitt. You're the perfect incarnation of Huckleberry Finn, always rafting down the river in search of something, you don't know what, around the next bend."
"I guess you could say that old Huck and I have a few things in common."
They kept moving around the dance floor, still holding each other as the band took a break and the other couples drifted back to their tables. Neither was the least bit self-conscious at the amused stares.
Maeve started to say, "I want to get out of here," but her mind lost control of her tongue and it came out,
"I want you."
As soon as she spoke the words a wave of embarrassment swept over her. Blood flushed her neck and face, darkening the healthy tan of her complexion. What must the poor man think of me? she wondered, mortified.
He smiled broadly. "Say good night to the Van Fleets. I'll get my car and meet you outside the club. I hope you dressed warm."
The Van Fleets exchanged knowing looks when she said she was leaving with Pitt. With her heart pounding madly, she hurried across the ballroom, checked out her coat and ran through the doors to the steps outside. She spotted him standing by a low red car, tipping the valet parking attendant. The car looked like it belonged on a racetrack. Except for the twin bucket seats, there was no upholstery. The small curved racing windscreen offered the barest protection from the airstream. There were no bumpers, and the front wheels were covered by what Maeve thought were motorcycle fenders. The spare tire was hung on the right side of the body between the fender and the door.
"Do you actually drive this thing?" she asked.
"I do," he answered solemnly.
"What do you call it?"
"A J2X Allard," Pitt answered, holding open a tiny aluminum door.
"It looks old."
"Built in England in 1952, at least twenty-five years before you were born. Installed with big American V-8 engines, Allards cleaned up at the sports car races until the Mercedes 300 SL coupes came along."
Maeve slipped into the Spartan cockpit, her legs stretched out nearly parallel to the ground. She noticed that the dashboard did not sport a speedometer, only four engine gauges and tachometer. "Will it get us where we're going?" she asked with trepidation.
"Not in drawing room comfort, but she comes close to the speed of sound," he said, laughing.
"It doesn't even have a top."
"I never drive it when it rains." He handed her a silk scarf. "For your hair. It gets pretty breezy sitting in the open. And don't forget to fasten your seat belt. The passenger door has an annoying habit of flying open on a sharp left turn."
Pitt eased his long frame behind the wheel, as Maeve knotted the ends of the scarf under her chin. He turned the ignition-starter key, depressed the clutch and shifted into first gear. There was no ear-shattering roar of exhaust, or scream of protesting tires. He eased out into the country club's driveway as quietly and smoothly as if he were driving in a funeral procession.
"How do you pass NUMA information to your father?" he asked in casual conversation.
She was silent for a few moments, unable to meet his eyes. Finally, she said, "One of Father's aides comes by my house, dressed as a pizza delivery boy."
"Not brilliant, but clever," Pitt said, eyeing a late model Cadillac STS sedan parked by the side of the drive, just inside the main gate of the country club. Three dark figures were sitting in it, two in front, one in the rear seat. He watched in the rearview mirror as the Cadillac's headlights blinked on and it began following the Allard, keeping a respectable distance. "Are you under surveillance?"
"I was told I'd be closely watched, but I have yet to catch anyone at it."
"You're not very observant. We have a car following us now."
She clutched his arm tightly. "This looks like a fast car. Why don't you simply speed away from them?"
"Speed away from them?" he echoed. He glanced at her, seeing the excitement flashing in her eyes.
`That's a Cadillac STS behind us, with a three-hundred-plus-horsepower engine that will hurl it upwards of 260 kilometers an hour. This old girl also has a Cadillac engine, with dual four-throat carburetors and an Iskenderian three-quarter cam."
"Which means nothing to me," she said flippantly.
"I'm making a point," he continued. "This was a very fast car forty-eight years ago. It's still fast, but it won't go over 210 kilometers an hour, and that's with a tailwind. The bottom line is that he's got us outclassed in horsepower and top speed."
"You must be able to do something to lose them."
"There is, but I'm not sure you're going to like it."
Pitt waited until he had climbed a sharp hill and dropped down the other side before he mashed the accelerator against its stop. Momentarily out of sight, he gained a precious five-second lead over the driver of the Cadillac. With a surge of power, the little red sports car abruptly leaped over the asphalt road. The trees lining the shoulder of the pavement, their leafless branches stretching over the road like skeletal latticework, became a mad blur under the twin headlight beams. The sensation was one of falling down a well.
Peering into the tiny rearview mirror perched on a small shaft mounted on the cowling, Pitt judged that he had gained a good 150 meters on the Cadillac before the driver crested the hill and realized his quarry had sprinted away. Pitt's total lead was now about a third of a kilometer. Allowing for the Cadillac's superior speed, Pitt estimated that he would be overtaken in another four or five minutes.
The road was straight and rural, running through a swanky region of Virginia just outside of Washington that was occupied by horse farms. Traffic was almost nonexistent this time of night, and Pitt had no trouble passing two slower cars.
The Cadillac was pressing hard and gaining with every kilometer. Pitt's grip on the steering wheel was loose and relaxed. He felt no fear. The men in the pursuing car were not out to harm either him or Maeve. This was not a life-or-death struggle. What he did feel was exhilaration as the tach needle crept into the red, a nearly empty road stretched out in front of him, and the wind roared in his ears in concert with the deep, throaty exhaust that blasted out of big twin pipes mounted under the sides of the Allard.
He took his eyes off the road for an instant and glanced at Maeve. She was pressed back in the seat, her head tilted up slightly as if to inhale the air rushing over the windscreen. Her eyes were half closed and her lips partly open. She looked almost as if she were in the throes of sexual ecstasy. Whatever it was, the thrill, the fury of the sounds, the speed, she was not the first woman to fall under the exciting spell of adventure. And what such women desired on the side was a good man to share it with.
Until they came into the outskirts of the city, there was little Pitt could do but crush the accelerator pedal with his foot and keep the wheels aimed alongside the painted line in the center of the road.
Without a speedometer, he could only estimate his speed by the tachometer. His best guess was between one-ninety and two hundred kilometers per hour. The old car was giving it everything she had.
Held by the safety belt, Maeve twisted around in the bucket seat. "They're gaining!" she shouted above the roar.
Pitt stole another quick peek in the rearview mirror. The chase car had pulled up to within a hundred meters. The driver was no slouch, he thought. His reflexes were every bit as fast as Pitt's. He turned his attention back on the road.
They were coming into a residential area now. Pitt might have tried to lose the Cadillac on the house-lined streets, but it was too dangerous to even consider. He could not risk running down a family and their dog out for a late night stroll. He wasn't about to cause a fatal accident involving innocent people.
It was only a matter of another minute or two before he would have to slow down and merge with the increased traffic for safety's sake. But for the moment the road ahead was deserted, and he maintained his speed. Then a sign flashed past that warned of construction on a county road leading west at the next junction. The road, Pitt knew, was winding with numerous sharp curves. It ran about five kilometers through open country before ending on the highway that ran by the CIA headquarters at Langley.
He jerked his right foot off the accelerator and jammed it on the brake pedal. Then he spun the steering wheel to the left, snapping the Allard broadside before tearing down the middle of the road, the tires smoking and screaming across the asphalt. Before the car drifted to a stop, the rear wheels were spinning and the Allard leaped onto the county road, which led into the pitch-black of the countryside.
Pitt had to focus every bit of his concentration on the curves ahead. The old sealed-beam headlights did not illuminate the road as far ahead as the more modern halogen units, and he had to use his sixth sense to prepare for the next bend. Pitt loved corners, ignoring the brakes, throwing the car into a controlled skid, then maneuvering into setting up for a straight line until the next curve.
The Allard was in its element now. The heavier Cadillac was stiffly sprung for a road car, but its suspension was no match for the lighter sports car, which was built for racing. Pitt had a love affair with the Allard. He had an exceptional sense of the car's balance and gloried in its simplicity and big, pounding engine. A taut grin stretched his lips as he threw the car into the curves, driving like a demon without touching the brakes, downshifting only on the hairpin turns. The driver of the Cadillac fought on relentlessly but rapidly lost ground with every turn.
Yellow warning lights were flashing on barricades ahead. A ditch opened up beside the road where a pipeline was in the midst of being laid. Pitt was relieved to see that the road carried through and was not blocked completely. The road turned to dirt and gravel for a hundred meters, but he never took his foot off the accelerator. He reveled at the huge cloud of dust he left in his wake, knowing it would slow their pursuer.
After another two minutes of her exciting breakneck ride, Maeve pointed ahead and slightly to her right. "I see headlights," she said.
"The main highway," Pitt acknowledged. "Here is where we lose them for good."
Traffic was clear at the intersection, no cars approaching from either direction for nearly half a kilometer. Pitt burned rubber in a hard turn to the left, away from the city.
"Aren't you going the wrong way?" Maeve cried above the screeching tires.
"Watch and learn," Pitt said as he snapped the wheel back, gently braked and eased the Allard around in a U turn and drove in the opposite direction. He crossed the junction with the county road before the lights of the Cadillac were in view and picked up speed as he drove toward the glow of the capital city.
"What was that all about?" asked Maeve.
"It's called a red herring," he said conversationally. "If the hounds are as smart as I think they are, they'll follow my tire marks in the opposite direction."
She squeezed his arm and snuggled against him. "What do you do for your finale?"
"Now that I've dazzled you with my virtuosity, I'm going to arouse you with my charm."
She gave him a sly look. "What makes you think I haven't been frightened out of any desire for intimacy?"
"I can climb into your mind and see otherwise."
Maeve laughed. "How can you possibly read my thoughts?"
Pitt shrugged cavalierly and said, "It's a gift. I have Gypsy blood running in my veins."
"You, a Gypsy?"
"According to the family tree, my paternal ancestors, who migrated from Spain to England in the seventeenth century, were Gypsies."
"And now you read palms and tell fortunes."
"Actually, my talents run in other directions, like when the moon is full."
She looked at him warily but took the bait. "What happens when the moon is full?"
He turned and said with the barest hint of a grin, "That's when I go out and steal chickens."
Maeve stared warily into the blackness as Pitt drove along a darkened dirt road on the edge of Washington's International Airport. He approached what looked like an ancient, deserted aircraft hangar.
There was no other building nearby. Her uneasiness swelled and she instinctively crouched down in the seat as Pitt pulled the Allard to a stop under dim, yellowed lights on a tall pole.
"Where are you taking me?" she demanded.
He looked down at her as if bemused. "Why, my place, of course."
Her face took on an expression of womanly distaste. "You live in this old shed?"
"What you see is a historic building, built in 1936 as a maintenance hangar for an early airline long since demised."
He pulled a small remote transmitter from his coat pocket and punched in a code. A second later a door lifted, revealing what seemed to Maeve a yawning cavern, pitch-black and full of evil. For effect, Pitt turned off the headlights, drove into the darkness, sent a signal to close the door and then sat there.
"Well, what do you think?" he teased in the darkness.
"I'm ready to scream for help," Maeve said with growing confusion.
"Sorry." Pitt punched in another code and the interior of the hangar burst into bright light from rows of fluorescent lamps strategically set around the hangar's arched ceiling.
Maeve's jaw dropped in awe as she found herself looking at priceless examples of mechanical art. She could not believe the glittering collection of classic automobiles, the aircraft and early American railroad car. She recognized a pair of Rolls-Royces and a big convertible Daimler, but she was unfamiliar with the American Packards, Pierce Arrows, Stutzes, Cords and the other European cars on display, including a Hispano-Suiza, Bugatti, Isotta Fraschini, Talbot Lago and a Delahaye. The two aircraft that hung from the ceiling were an old Ford Tri-motor and a Messerschmitt 262 World War II fighter aircraft. The array was
breathtaking. The only exhibit that seemed out of place was a rectangular pedestal supporting an outboard motor attached to an antique cast-iron bathtub.
"Is this all yours?" she gasped.
"It was either this or a wife and kids," he joked.
She turned and tilted her head coquettishly. "You're not too old to marry and have children. You just haven't found the right woman."
"I suppose that's true."
"Unlucky in love'?"
"The Pitt curse."
She gestured to a dark blue Pierce Arrow travel trailer. "Is that where you live?"
He laughed and pointed up. "My apartment is up those circular iron stairs, or if you're lazy, you can take the freight elevator."
"I can use the exercise," she said softly.
He showed her up the ornate wrought-iron spiral staircase. The door opened into a living room-study filled with shelves stacked with books about the sea and glass encased models of ships Pitt had discovered and surveyed while working for NUMA. A door on one side of the room led into a large bedroom decorated like the captain's cabin of an old sailing ship complete with a huge wheel as a backboard for the bed. The opposite end of the living room opened into a kitchen and dining area. To Maeve, the apartment positively reeked of masculinity.
"So this is where Huckleberry Finn moved after leaving his houseboat on the river," she said, kicking off her shoes, settling onto a leather couch and curling up her legs on the cushions.
"I'm on water most of the year as it is. These rooms don't see me as often as I'd like." He removed his coat and untied his bow tie. "Can I offer you a drink?"
"A brandy might be nice."
"Come to think of it, I carried you away from the party before you had a chance to eat. Let me whip you up something."
"The brandy will-do just fine. I can gorge tomorrow."
He poured Maeve a Remy Martin and sat down on the couch beside her. She wanted him desperately, wanted to press herself into his arms, to just touch him, but inside herself she was seething with turmoil. A sudden wave of guilt swept over her as she visualized her children suffering under the brutal hand of Jack Ferguson. She could not push aside the enormity of it. Her chest felt tight, and the rest of her body, numb and weak. She ached for Sean and Michael, who were to her still babies. To allow herself to fall into a sensual adventure was little short of a crime. She wanted to scream with despair. She set the brandy on the coffee table and abruptly began to weep uncontrollably.