Velikov sat silent and examined Pitt with the contempt only a Slav could show to a Mongol. "I'll ask you again to cooperate."
"I'm only a marine engineer. I don't know any military secrets."
"My only interest is what your superiors told you about this island and how you came to be here."
"What are the percentages? You've already made it clear my friends and I are to die."
"Perhaps your future can be extended."
"Makes no difference. We've already told you all we know."
Velikov drummed his fingers on the desktop. "You still claim you landed on Cayo Santa Maria purely by chance?"
"I do."
"And you expect me to believe that of all the islands and all the beaches in Cuba Mrs. LeBaron came ashore at the exact spot-- without any prior knowledge, I might add-- where her husband was residing?"
"Frankly, I'd have a tough time believing it too. But that's exactly how it happened."
Velikov glared at Pitt, but he seemed to sense an integrity that he could not bring himself to approve. "I have all the time in the world, Mr. Pitt. I'm convinced you're withholding vital information. We'll talk again when you're not so arrogant." He pushed a button on his desk that summoned the guard. There was a smile on his face, but there was no satisfaction, no hint of pleasure. If anything, the smile was sad.
"You must excuse me for being so abrupt," said Foss Gly. "Experience has taught me that the unexpected produces more effective results than lengthy anticipation."
No word had been spoken when Pitt entered room six. He had taken only one step over the threshold when Gly, who was standing behind the half-opened door, struck him in the small of his back just above the kidney. He gasped in agony and nearly blacked out but somehow remained standing.
"So, Mr. Pitt, now that I have your attention, perhaps there is something you wish to say to me."
"Did anybody ever tell you you're a psycho case?" Pitt muttered through pressed lips.
He saw the fist lashing out, expected it, and rolled with the punch, reeling backward into a wall and melting to the floor, feigning unconsciousness. He tasted the blood inside his mouth and felt a numbness creeping over the left side of his face. He kept his eyes closed and lay limp. He had to feel his way with this sadistic hulk of slime, assess Gly's reaction to answers and attitude, and predict when and where the next blow would strike. There would be no stopping the brutality. His only objective was to survive the interrogation without a crippling injury.
Gly went over to a dirty washbasin, filled a bucket of water, and splashed it on Pitt. "Come now, Mr.
Pitt. If I'm any judge of men, you can take a punch better than that."
Pitt struggled to his hands and knees, spit blood on the cement floor, and groaned convincingly, almost pitiable. "I can't tell you any more than I already have," he mumbled.
Gly picked him up as if he were a small child and dropped him in a chair. Out of the corner of one eye Pitt caught Gly's right fist coming at him in a vicious swing. He rode the impact as best he could, catching the blow just above the cheekbone under the temple. For a few seconds he absorbed the stunning pain and then pretended to pass out again.
Another bucket of water and he went through his moaning routine. Gly leaned down until they were face to face. "Who are you working for?"
Pitt raised his hands and clutched his throbbing head. "I was hired by Jessie LeBaron to find out what happened to her husband."
"You landed from a submarine."
"We left the Florida Keys in a blimp."
"Your purpose in coming here was to gather information on the transfer of power in Cuba."
Pitt furrowed his brow in confusion. "Transfer of power? I don't know what you're talking about."
This time Gly struck Pitt in the upper stomach, knocking every cubic inch of wind from him. Then he calmly sat down and watched the reaction.
Pitt went rigid as he fought for breath. He felt as if his heart had stopped. He could taste the bile in his throat, feel the sweat seep from his forehead, and his lungs seemed to be twisted in knots. The walls of the room wavered and swam before his eyes. Gly looked to be smiling wickedly at the end of along tunnel.
"What were your orders once you arrived on Cayo Santa Maria?"
"No orders," Pitt rasped.
Gly rose and approached to strike again. Pitt drunkenly came to his feet, swayed for a moment, and began to sag, his head drooping to one side. He had Gly's measure now. He recognized a weak point.
Like most sadists, Gly was basically a coward. He would flinch and be thrown off his track if he was evenly matched.
Gly flexed his body to swing, but suddenly froze in stunned astonishment. Bringing up his fist from the floor and pivoting his shoulder, Pitt threw a right-hand cross that carried every ounce of power he could muster. He connected with Gly's nose, mashing the cartilage and breaking the bone. Then he followed up with two left jabs and a solid hook to the body. He might as well have attacked the cornerstone of the Empire State Building.
Any other man would have fallen flat on his back. Gly staggered back a few feet and stood there with his face slowly reddening in rage. The blood streamed from his nose but he took no notice of it. He raised one fist and shook it at Pitt. "I'll kill you for that," he said.
"Stick it in your ear," Pitt replied sullenly. He grabbed the chair and threw it across the room. Gly merely smashed it aside with his arm. Pitt caught the shift of the eyes and realized his whiplash speed was about to lose out to brute strength.
Gly tore the washbasin from the wall, literally ripped it from its plumbing, and lifted it over his head. He took three steps and heaved it in Pitt's direction. Pitt jumped sideways and ducked around in one convulsive motion. As the sink sailed toward him like a safe falling from a high building, he knew his reaction came a split second too late. He threw up his hands instinctively in a hopeless gesture to ward off the flying mass of iron and porcelain.
Pitt's salvation came from the door. The latch caught the main crush from one corner of the washbasin and was smashed out of its catch. The door burst open and Pitt was knocked backward into the hallway, crashing in a heap at the feet of the startled guard. A shooting pain in his groin and right arm compounded the agonies already piercing his side and head. Gray-faced, waves of nausea sweeping over him, he shook away the beckoning unconsciousness and came to his feet, his hands spread on the wall for support.
Gly tore the sink from the doorway where it had become jammed and stared at Pitt with a look that could only be described as murderous. "You're a dead man, Pitt. You're going to die slowly, an inch at a time, begging to be put out of your agony. The next time we meet I'll snap every bone in your body and tear your heart out."
There was no fear in Pitt's eyes. The pain was draining away, to be replaced with elation. He had survived. He hurt, but the way was clear.
"The next time we meet," he said vengefully, "I'll carry a big club."
>
Pitt slept after the guard helped him back to his cell. When he woke up it was three hours later. He lay there for several minutes until his mind slowly shifted into gear. His body and face were an unending sea of contusions, but no bones were broken. He had survived.
He sat up and swung his feet to the floor, waiting for a few moments of dizziness to pass. He pushed himself to his feet and began doing stretching exercises to ease the stiffness. A wave of weakness swept over him, but he willed himself to reject it, continuing the drill until his muscles and joints became limber.
The guard came and went with dinner, and Pitt adroitly jammed the latch again, a maneuver he had honed so there would be no fumbling, no last-minute bungle. He paused, and hearing no footsteps or voices, stepped into the corridor.
Time was a luxury. There was too much to accomplish and too few hours of darkness to manage it.
He regretfully wished he could say his farewells to Giordino and Gunn, but every minute he lingered in the compound depleted his odds of success.
The first order of business was to find Jessie and take her with him.
She was behind the fifth door he tried, lying on the concrete floor with nothing under her but a dirty blanket. Her naked body was completely unmarked, but her once lovely face was grotesquely swollen with purplish bruises. Gly had shrewdly worked his evil by humiliating her virtue and brutalizing a beautiful woman's most valued asset-- her face.
Pitt bent over and cradled her head in his arms, his expression tender, but his eyes insane with rage.
He was consumed with revenge. He shook with a madness for savage vengeance that went far beyond anything he had experienced before. He gritted his teeth and gently shook her awake.
"Jessie. Jessie, can you hear me?"
Her mouth trembled open as her eyes focused on him. "Dirk," she moaned. "Is it you?"
"Yes, I'm taking you out of here."
"Taking. . . how?"
"I've found a way for us to escape the compound."
"But the island. Raymond said it's impossible to escape from the island."
"I've hidden the outboard motor from the inflatable boat. If I can build a small raft=
"No!" she whispered adamantly.
She struggled to sit up, a look of concentration crossing the swollen mask that was her face. He lightly gripped her by the shoulders and held her down.
"Don't move," he said.
"You must go alone," she said.
"I won't leave you like this."
She shook her head weakly. "No. I would only increase your chances of getting caught."
"Sorry," Pitt said flatly. "Like it or not, you're coming."
"Don't you understand," she pleaded. "You're the only hope for saving all of us. If you make it back to the States and tell the President what's happening here, Velikov will have to keep us alive."
"What does the President have to do with this?"
"More than you know."
"Then Velikov was right. There is a conspiracy."
"Don't waste time conjecturing. Go, please go. By saving yourself you can save all of us."
Pitt felt an overwhelming surge of admiration for Jessie. She looked like a discarded doll now, battered and helpless, but he realized her outer beauty was matched by an inner one that was brave and resolute. He leaned over and kissed her lightly on puffed and split lips.
"I'll make it," he said confidently. "Promise me you'll hang on till I get back."
She tried to smile, but her mouth couldn't respond. "You crazy clown. You can't return to Cuba."
"Watch me."
"Good luck," she murmured softly. "Forgive me for messing up your life."
Pitt grinned, but the tears were welling in his eyes. "That's what men like about women. They never let us get bored."
He kissed her again on the forehead and turned away, his tanned fists white-knuckled by his side.
The climb up the emergency-shaft ladder made Pitt's arms ache, and when he reached the top he rested for a minute before pushing the lid aside and crouching in the darkness of the garage. The two soldiers were still engaged in a game of chess. It seemed to be a nightly routine to pass the boring hours of standby duty. They seldom bothered to glance at the vehicles parked outside their office. There was no reason to anticipate trouble. They were probably mechanics, Pitt reasoned, not security guards.
He reconnoitered the garage area-- tool benches, lubrication racks, oil and parts storage, trucks, and construction equipment. The trucks had spare five-gallon fuel cans attached to their beds. Pitt lightly tapped the cans until he found one that was full. The rest were all half empty or less. He groped around a tool bench until he found a rubber tube and used it to siphon gas from one of the truck's tanks. Two cans containing ten gallons were all he could carry. The problem he faced now was getting them through the vent in the roof.
Pitt took a towrope that was hanging from one wall and tied the ends to the handles on the gas cans.
Holding the middle in a loop, he climbed to the support girders. Slowly, watching to see that the mechanics kept their attention on the chess game, he pulled the cans to the roof one at a time and pushed them ahead of him into the vent.
In another two minutes he was lugging them across the yard into the culvert that ran under the wall. He quickly spread the bars apart and hurried outside.
The sky was clear and the quarter-moon floated in a sea of stars. There was only a whisper of wind and the night air was cool. He fervently hoped the sea was calm.
For no particular reason he skirted the opposite side of the road this time. It was slow going. The heavy cans soon made his arms feel as though they were separating at the joints. His feet sank into the soft sand, and he had to stop every two hundred yards to catch his breath and allow the growing ache in his hands and arms to subside.
Pitt tripped and sprawled on the edge of a wide clearing surrounded by a thick grove of palm trees, so thick their trunks almost touched each other. He reached out and swept around with his hands. They touched a metal network that blended into the sand and became nearly invisible.
Curious, he left the gas cans and crawled cautiously around the edge of the clearing. The metal grid rose two inches off the ground and extended across the entire diameter. The center dropped away until it became concave like a bowl. He ran his hands over the trunks of the palm trees circling the rim.
They were fake. The trunks and fronds were constructed out of aluminum tubes and covered with realistic sheathing made from sanded plastic. There were over fifty of them, painted with camouflage to deceive American spy planes and their penetrating cameras.
The bowl was a giant dish-shaped radio and television antenna and the bogus palm trees were hydraulic arms that raised and lowered it. Pitt was stunned at the implication of what he had accidentally discovered. He knew now that buried under the sands of the island was a vast communications center.
But for exactly what purpose?
Pitt had no time to reflect. But he was determined more than ever to get free. He continued walking in the shadows. The village was farther than he remembered. He was a mass of sweat and panted heavily from exhaustion when he finally stumbled into the yard where he'd hidden the outboard motor under the bathtub. He thankfully dropped the gas cans and lay down on the old mattress and dozed for an hour.
Although he could not afford the time, the short rest refreshed him considerably. It also allowed his mind to create. An idea crystallized that was so incredibly simple in concept he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before.
He carried the gas cans down to the lagoon. Then he returned for the outboard. Looking through piles of trash, he located a short plank that showed no rot. The last chore was the hardest. Necessity was the mother of invention, Pitt kept telling himself.
Forty-five minutes later, he had dragged the old bathtub from its resting place in the yard down the road to the water's edge.
Using the plank as a transom, Pitt bolted the outboard to the rear of the tub. Next he cleaned out the fuel filter and blew out the lines. A piece of tin bent in a cone served as a funnel to fill the outboard's tank.
By holding his thumb over the bottom hole he could also use it for a bailing can. His final act before stuffing a rag plug in the drain was to knock off the bathtub's four webbed feet with an iron bar.
He pulled at the starter cord twelve times before the motor sputtered, caught, and began to purr. He shoved the tub into deeper water until it floated. Then he climbed in. The ballast weight of his body and the two full gas cans made it surprisingly stable. He lowered the propeller shaft into the water and pushed the gear lever to Forward.
The oddball craft slowly moved out into the lagoon and headed for the main channel. A shaft of moonlight showed the sea was calm, the swells no more than two feet. Pitt concentrated on the surf. He had to pass through the breaking waves and place as much distance between himself and the island by sunrise as possible.
He slowed the motor and timed the breakers, counting them. Nine heavies cra
shed one behind the other, leaving a long trough separating the tenth. Pitt pushed the throttle to Full and settled in the stern of the tub. The next wave was low and crashed immediately in front of him. He took the impact of the churning foam bow-on and plowed through. The tub staggered, then the propeller bit the water and it surged over the crest of the following wave before it curled.
Pitt let out a hoarse shout as he broke free. The worst was over. He knew he could only be discovered by sheer accident. The bathtub was too small to be picked up by radar. He eased up on the throttle to conserve the motor and the fuel. Dragging his hand in the water, he guessed his speed at about four knots. He should be well clear of Cuban waters by morning.
He looked up at the heavens, took his bearings, picked out a star to steer by, and set a course for the Bahama Channel.
SELENOS 8
October 30, 1989
Kazakhstan, USSR
>
With a fireball brighter than the Siberian sun, Selenos 8 rose into a chilly blue sky carrying the 110-ton manned lunar station. The super rocket and four strap-on boosters, generating 14 million pounds of thrust, threw out a tail of orange-yellow flame 1,000 feet long and 300 feet wide. White smoke burst around the launch pad and the rumble from the engines rattled glass twelve miles away. At first it lifted so ponderously that it hardly seemed to be moving at all. Then it picked up speed and thundered skyward.
Soviet President Antonov observed the liftoff from an armored glass bunker through a pair of large binoculars mounted on a tripod. Sergei Kornilov and General Yasenin stood beside him, intently monitoring voice communications between the cosmonauts and the space control center.