"Can Lugovoy lose control over the President?" asked Brogan.
"If the President ceases to think and act for himself, he breaks the ties to his normal world. Then be may tend to stray from Lugovoy's instructions and carry them to extremes."
"Is this why he's instigated so many radical programs in such haste?"
"I can't say," Edgely answered. "For all I know he is responding precisely to Lugovoy's commands. I do suspect, however, that it goes far deeper."
"In what manner?"
"The reports supplied by Mr. Brogan's operatives in Russia show that Lugovoy has attempted experiments with political prisoners, transferring the fluin from their hippocampuses-a structure in the brain's limbic system that holds our memories-to those of other subjects."
"A memory injection," Oates murmured wonderingly, "So there really is a Dr. Frankenstein."
"Memory transfer is a tricky business," Edgely continued. "There is no predicting with any certainty the end results."
"Do you think Lugovoy performed this experiment on the President?"
"I hate to say yes, but if he runs true to form, he might very well have programmed some poor Russian prisoner for months, even years, with thoughts promoting Soviet policy, and then transplanted the hippocampal fluin into the President's brain as a backup to the implant."
"Under the proper care," Oates asked, "could the President return to normal?"
"You mean put his mind back as it was before?"
"Something like that."
Edgely shook his head. "Any known treatment will not reverse the damage. The President will always be haunted by the memory of someone else."
"Couldn't you extract his hippocampal fluin as well?"
"I catch your meaning, but by removing the foreign thought patterns, we'd be erasing the President's own memories." Edgely paused. "No, I'm sorry to say, the President's behavior patterns have been irrevocably altered."
"Then he should be removed from office . . . permanently."
"That would be my recommendation," answered Edgely without hesitation.
Oates sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.
"Thank you, Doctor. You've reinforced our resolve."
"From what I've heard, no one gets through the White House gates."
"If the Russians could abduct him," said Brogan, "I see no reason why we can't do the same. But first we have to disconnect him from Lugovoy."
"May I make a suggestion?"
'Please."
"There is an excellent opportunity to turn this situation around to our advantage."
" How?"
"Rather than cut off his brain signals, why not tune in on the frequency?"
"For what purpose?"
"So my staff and I can feed the transmissions into our own monitoring equipment. If our computers can receive enough data, say within a forty-eight-hour period, we can take the place of the President's brain."
" A substitution to feed the Russians false information," said Brogan, rising to Edgely's inspiration.
"Exactly!" Edgely exclaimed. "Because they have every reason to believe the valinity of the data they receive from the President's, Soviet intelligence can be led down whichever garden path you choose."
"I like the idea," said Oates. "But the stickler is whether we can afford the forty-eight hours. There's no telling what the President might attempt within that time frame."
"The risk is worth it," Brogan stated flatly.
There was a knock on the door and Oates's secretary leaned her head into the room. "Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Secretary, but Mr. Brogan has an urgent call."
Brogan got up quickly, lifted the phone on Oates's desk and pressed the winking button. "Brogan."
He stood there listening for close to a full minute without speaking. Then he hung up and faced Oates.
"Speaker of the House, Alan Moran just turned up alive at our Guant'anamo Bay naval base in Cuba," he said slowly.
"Margolin?"
"No report."
"Larimer?"
"Senator Larimer is dead."
"Oh, good God!" Oates moaned. "That means Moran could be our next President. I can't think of a more unscrupulous or illequipped man for the job!"
"A Fagin poised at the White House gate," commented Brogan.
"Not a pleasant thought."
PITT WAS CERTAIN HE WAS DEAD. There was no reason why he shouldn't be dead. And yet he saw no blinding light at the end of a tunnel, no faces of friends and relatives who died before him. He felt as though he were dozing in his own bed at home, And Loren was there, her hair cascading on the pillow, her body pressed against his, her arms encircling his neck, holding tightly, refusing to let him drift away. Her face seemed to glow, and her violet eyes looked straight into his. He wondered if she was dead too.
Suddenly she released her hold and began to blur, moving away, diminishing ever smaller until she vanished altogether. A dim light filtered through his closed eyelins and he heard voices in the distance. Slowly, with an effort as great as lifting a pair of hundredpound weights, he opened his eyes. At first he thought he was gazing at a flat white surface. Then as his mind crept past the veil of unconsciousness he realized he really was gazing at a flat white surface.
It was a ceiling.
A strange voice said, "He's coming around."
"Takes more than three cracked ribs, a brain concussion and a gallon of seawater to do this character in." There was no mistaking this laconic voice.
"My worst fears," Pitt managed to mutter. "I've gone to hell and met the devil."
"See how he talks about his best and only friend," said Al Giordino to a doctor in naval uniform.
"He's in good physical shape," said the doctor. "He should mend pretty quickly."
"Pardon the mundane question," said Pitt, "but where am I?"
"Welcome to the U.S. Naval Hospital at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba," the doctor answered. "You and Mr. Giordino were fished out of the water by one of our recovery craft."
Pitt focused his eyes on Giordino. "Are you all right?"
"He has a bruise the size of a cantaloupe on his abdomen, but he'll survive," the doctor said, smiling. "By the way, I understand he saved your life."
Pitt cleared the mist from his mind and tried to recall. "The steward from the Leonin Andreyev was playing baseball with my head."
"Pounded you under the boat with an oar," Giordino explained.
"I slipped over the side, swam underwater until I grabbed your arm, and dragged you to the surface. The steward would have beat on me too except for the timely arrival of a Navy helicopter whose paramedics jumped into the water and helped sling us onboard."
"And Loren?"
Giordino averted his gaze. "She's listed as missing."
"Missing, hell!" Pitt snarled. He grimaced from the sudden pain in his chest as he rose to his elbows. "We both know she was alive and sitting in the lifeboat."
A solemn look clouded Giordino's face. "Her name didn't appear on a list of survivors given out by the ship's captain."
"A Bougainville ship!" Pitt blurted as his memory came flooding back. "The Oriental steward who tried to brain us pointed toward the-" "Chalmette," Giordino prompted.
"Yes, the Chalmette, and said it belonged to him. He also spoke my name."
"Stewards are supposed to remember passengers' names. He knew you as Charlie Gruber in cabin thirty-four."
"No, he rightly accused me of meddling in Bougainville affairs, and his last words were 'Bon voyage, Dirk Pitt."
" Giordino gave a puzzled shrug. "Beats hell out of me how he knew you. But why would a Bougainville man work as a steward on a Russian cruise ship?"
"I can't begin to guess .
"And lie about Loren's rescue?"
Pitt merely gave an imperceptible shake of his head.
"Then she's being held prisoner by the Bougainvilles," said Giordino as if suddenly enlightened. "But for what reason?"
"You keep asking questions I can't a
nswer," Pitt said irritably.
"Where is the Chalmette now?"
"Headed toward Miami to land the survivors."
"How long have I been unconscious?"
"About thirty-two hours," replied the doctor.
"Still time," said Pitt. "The Chalnwtte won't reach the Florida coast for several hours yet."
He raised himself to a sitting position and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The room began to seesaw back and forth.
The doctor moved forward and steadied him by both arms. "I hope you don't think you're rushing off somewhere."
"I intend to be standing on the dock when the Chalmette arrives in Miami," Pitt said implacably.
A stern medical-profession look grew on the doctor's face.
"You're staying in this bed for the next four days. You can't travel around with those fractured ribs, and we don't know how serious your concussion is."
"Sorry, Doc," Giordino said, "but you've both been overruled."
Pitt stared at him stonily. "Who's to stop me?"
"Admiral Sandecker, for one. Secretary of State Doug Oates for another," Giordino answered as detachedly as though he were reading aloud the stock market quotes for the day. "Orders came down for you to fly to Washington the minute you came around.
We may be in big trouble. I have a hunch we dipped into the wrong cookie jar when we discovered Congressman Moran and Senator Larimer imprisoned on a Soviet vessel."
"They can wait until I search the Chalmette for Loren."
"My job. You go to the capital while I go to Miami and play customs inspector. It's all been arranged."
Pacified to a small degree, Pitt relaxed on the bed. "What about Moran?"
"He couldn't wait to cut out," Giordino said angrily. "He demanded the Navy drop everything and fly him home the minute he was brought ashore. I had a minor confrontation with him in the hospital corridor after his routine examination. Came within a millimeter of cramming his hook nose down his gullet. The bastard didn't demonstrate the slightest concern about Loren, and he seemed downright delighted when I told him of Larimer's death."
"He has a talent for deserting those who help him," Pitt said disgustedly.
An orderly rolled in a wheelchair and together with Giordino eased Pitt into it. A groan escaped his lips as a piercing pain ripped through his chest.
"You're leaving against my express wishes," said the doctor. "I want that understood. There is no guarantee you won't have complications if you overtax yourself."
"I release you from all responsibility, Doc," Pitt said, smiling.
"I won't tell a soul I was your patient. Your medical reputation is secure.
Giordino lain a pile of Navy-issue clothing and a small paper sack in Pitts lap. "Here's some presentable clothes and the stuff from your pockets. You can dress on the plane to save time."
Pitt opened the sack and fingered a vinyl pouch inside. Satisfied the contents were secure and dry, he looked up at Giordino and shook hands. "Good hunting, friend."
Giordino patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll find her.
You go to Washington and give'em hell."
No one could have suffered from a Rip Van Winkle syndrome and awakened more surprised than Alan Moran. He remembered going to sleep on the presidential yacht almost two weeks earlier, and his next conscious sensation was being dragged into a limousine somewhere in the river country of South Carolina. The imprisonment and escape from the burning Russian cruise ship seemed a distorted blur. Only when he returned to Washington and found both Congress and the Supreme Court evicted from their hallowed halls did he come back on track and retrieve his mantle of political power.
With the government in emotional and political shambles, he saw his chance to fulfill his deep, unfathomable ambition to become President. Not having the popular support to take the office by election, he was determined now to grab it by default. With Margolin missing, Larimer out of the way, and the President lain open for impeachment, there was little to stop him.
Moran held court in the middle of Jackson Square across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House and answered questions fired by a battery of correspondents. He was the man of the hour and was enjoying every second of the attention.
"Can you tell us where you've been the last two weeks?" asked Ray Marsh of the New York Times.
" Be glad to," Moran replied gracefully. "Senate Majority Leader Marcus Larimer and I went on a fishing holinay in the Caribbean, partly to try our luck at snagging a record marlin, mostly to discuss the issues facing our great nation."
"Initial reports state that Senator Larimer died during the Leonin Andreyev tragedy."
"I'm deeply sandened to say that is true," Moran said, abruptly becoming solemn. "The senator and I were trolling only five or six miles away from the Russian cruise ship when we heard and observed an explosion that covered her in fire and smoke. We immediately ordered our skipper to change course for the disaster area. When we arrived, the Leonin Andreyev'was ablaze from stem to stern. Hundreds of frightened passengers were tumbling into the sea, many with their clothes in flames."
Moran paused for effect and then enunciated in a vivin descriptive tone. "I leaped into the water, followed by the senator, to help those who were badly injured or unable to swim. We struggled for what seemed like hours, keeping women and children afloat until we could lift them into our fishing boat. I lost track of Senator Larimer. When I looked for him, he was floating facedown, an apparent victim of a heart attack due to overexertion. You can quote me as saying he died a real hero."
"How many people do you'reckon you saved?" This from Joe Stark of the United Press.
"I lost count," answered Moran, serenely pitching out the lies.
"Our small vessel became dangerously overloaded with burned and half-drowned victims. So, rather than become the straw that might capsize it, so to speak, I remained in the water so one more pitiful creature could cheat death. Luckily for me, I was picked up by the Navy, which, I must say, performed magnificently."
"Were you aware that Congresswoman Loren Smith was traveling on the Leonin Andreyev?" asked Marion Tournier of the Associated Press Radio Network.
"Not at the time," replied Moran, changing back to his solemn demeanor again. "Regretfully, I've only just been informed that she's reported as missing."
Curtis Mayo signaled his cameramen and edged closer to Moran.
"Congressman, what is your feeling regarding the President's unprecedented closing of Congress?"
"Deeply mortified that such an arrogant deed could take place in our government. It's obvious the'President has taken leave of his senses. With one terrible blow, he has swept our nation from a democracy into a fascist state. I fully intend to see that he is removed from office-the sooner, the better."
"How do you propose to do it?" Mayo pushed him. "Every time the members of the House convene to launch impeachment proceedings, the President sends in troops to disband them."
"The story will be different this time," Moran said confidently.
"Tomorrow morning at ten o'clock, members of Congress will hold a joint session in Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University.
And in order to meet without interference or disruption by the President's unauthorized and immoral use of the military, we intend to confront force with force. I have conferred with my House and Senate colleagues from the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia who have prevailed upon their governors to protect our constitutional right to assemble by providing troops from their National Guard units."
"Will they have orders to shoot?" asked Mayo, smelling newsworthy blood.
"If attacked," Moran replied coldly, "the answer is an absolute yes."
"And so Civil War Two erupts," said Oates wearily as he switched off the TV set and turned to face Emmett, Mercier and Brogan.
"Moran is as daft as the President," Emmett said, shaking his head in disgust.
"I pity the American public for being forced to accep
t such miserable leadership material," Mercier grumbled.