confused or mystified when the tears came. He looked upon women’s sometimes emotional behavior more with compassion than discomfort. “Put a woman’s concern for her offspring against her sex drive, and motherly concern wins every time.”
Maeve would never comprehend how Pitt could be so understanding. To her, he didn’t seem human. He certainly was unlike any man she’d ever known. “I’m so lost and afraid. I’ve never been more helpless in my life.”
He rose from the couch and came back with a box of tissues. “Sorry I can’t offer you a handkerchief, but I don’t carry them much anymore.”
“You don’t mind ... my disappointing you?”
Pitt smiled as Maeve wiped her eyes and blew her nose with a loud snort. “The truth is, I had ulterior motives.”
Her eyes widened questioningly. “You don’t want to go to bed with me?”
“I’d turn in my testosterone card if I didn’t. But that’s not entirely why I brought you here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I need your help in consolidating my plans.”
“Plans for what?”
He looked at her as if he was surprised she asked. “To sneak onto Gladiator Island, of course, snatch your boys and make a clean getaway.”
Maeve made nervous gestures of incomprehension with her hands. “You’d do that?” she gasped. “You’d risk your life for me?”
“And your sons,” Pitt added firmly.
“But why?”
He had an overpowering urge to tell her she was lithe and lovely and that he harbored feelings of deep affection for her, but he couldn’t bring himself to sound like a lovesick adolescent. True to form, he swerved to the light side.
“Why? Because Admiral Sandecker gave me ten days off, and I hate to sit around and not be productive.”
A smile returned to her damp face, and she pulled him against her. “That’s not even a good lie.”
“Why is it,” he said just before he kissed her, “that women always see right through me?”
DIAMONDS... THE GRAND ILLUSION
The Dorsett manor house sat in the saddle of the island, between the two dormant volcanoes. The front overlooked the lagoon, which had become a bustling port for the diamond mining activities. Two mines in both volcanic chutes had been in continuous operation almost from the day Charles and Mary Dorsett returned from England after their marriage. There were those who claimed the family empire began then, but those who knew better held that the empire was truly launched by Betsy Fletcher when she found the unusual stones and gave them to her children to play with.
The original dwelling, mostly built from logs, with a palm frond or palapa roof, was torn down by Anson Dorsett. It was he who designed and built the large mansion that still stood after being remodeled by later generations until eventually taken over by Arthur Dorsett. The style was based on the classical layout-a central courtyard surrounded by verandas from which doors opened onto thirty rooms, all furnished in English colonial antiques. The only visible modern convenience was a large satellite dish, rising from a luxuriant garden, and a modern swimming pool in the center courtyard.
Arthur Dorsett hung up the phone, stepped out of his office-study and walked over to the pool where Deirdre was languidly stretched on a lounge chair, in a string bikini, carefully absorbing the tropical sun into her smooth skin.
“You’d better not let my superintendents see you like that,” he said gruffly.
She slowly raised her head and looked down over a sea of skin. “I see no problem. I have my bra on.”
“And women wonder why they’re raped.”
“Surely you don’t want me to go around wearing a sack,” she said mockingly.
“I have just gotten off the phone with Washington,” he said heavily. “It seems your sister has vanished.”
Deirdre sat up, startled, and lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the sun. “Are your sources reliable? I personally hired the best investigators, former Secret Service agents, to keep her under surveillance.”
“It’s confirmed. They bungled their assignment and lost her after a wild ride through the countryside.”
“Maeve isn’t smart enough to lose professional investigators.”
“From what I’ve been told, she had help.” Her lips twisted into a scowl. “Let me guess Dirk Pitt.”
Dorsett nodded. “The man is everywhere. Boudicca had him in her grasp at our Kunghit Island mine, but he slipped through her fingers.”
“I sensed he was dangerous when he saved Maeve. I should have known how dangerous when he interrupted my plans to be airlifted off the Polar Queen by our helicopter after I set the ship on a collision course toward the rocks. I thought we were rid of him after that. I never imagined he would pop up without warning at our Canadian operation.”
Dorsett motioned to a pretty little Chinese girl who was standing by a column supporting the roof over the veranda. She was dressed in a silk dress with long slits up the sides. “Bring me a gin,” he ordered. “Make it a tall one. I don’t like skimpy drinks.”
Deirdre held up a tall, empty glass. “Another rum collins.”
The girl hurried off to bring the drinks. Deirdre caught her father eyeing the girl’s backside and rolled her eyes. “Really, Daddy. You should know better than to bed the hired help. The world expects better from a man of your wealth and status.”
“There are some things that go beyond class,” he said sternly.
“What do we do about Maeve? She’s obviously enlisted Dirk Pitt and his friends from NUMA to help her retrieve the twins.”
Dorsett pulled his attention from the departing Chinese servant. “He may be a resourceful man, but he won’t find Gladiator Island as easy to penetrate as our Kunghit Island property.”
“Maeve knows the island better than any of us. She’ll find a way.”
“Even if they make it ashore”-he lifted a finger and pointed through the arched door of the courtyard in the general direction of the mines-“they’ll never get within two hundred meters of the house.”
Deirdre smiled diabolically. “Preparing a warm welcome seems most appropriate.”
“No warm welcome, my darling daughter, not here, not on Gladiator Island.”
“You have an ulterior plan.” It was more statement than question.
He nodded. “Through Maeve, they will, no doubt, devise a scheme to infiltrate our security. Unfortunately for them, they won’t have the opportunity of exercising it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We cut them off at the pass, as the Americans are fond of saying, before they touch our shore.”
“A perceptive man, my father.” She stood up and hugged him, inhaling his smell. Even when she was a little girl he had smelled of expensive cologne, a special brand he imported from Germany, a musky, no-nonsense smell that reminded her of leather briefcases, the indefinable scent of a corporation boardroom and the wool of an expensive business suit.
He reluctantly pushed her away, angry at a growing feeling of desire for his own flesh and blood. “I want you to coordinate the mission. As usual, Boudicca will expedite.”
“I’ll bet my share of Dorsett Consolidated you know where to find them.” She smiled archly at him. “What is our timetable?”
