dedication.'
'The other two gentlemen?'
'Good friends.'
The security guard handed Pitt a small remote alarm. 'Please carry this with you at all times while you are in your residence. At the slightest hint of danger, press the transmit button. We'll respond within twenty seconds.'
The security guard didn't offer his name, and Pitt didn't ask.
Mulholland had the trunk open, and Pitt retrieved his duffel bag. At that moment, he noticed the two security guards had vanished. He looked around the hangar grounds and scanned the empty fields off to the side of the main runway. It was as if they had never been. Pitt could only guess that they were concealed under the earth.
'I'll have Hugo drive by NUMA headquarters and drop off your obsidian heads,' said Perlmutter.
Pitt placed a hand on Mulholland's shoulder. 'Very gently, carry them to the lab on the sixth floor and give them to the scientist in charge. His name is Harry Matthews.'
Mulholland cracked a faint grin that was equal to a wide-toothed grin from anyone else. 'I'll make every effort not to drop them.'
'Good-bye, St. Julien. And thank you.'
'Not at all, my boy. Drop over for dinner first chance you get.'
Pitt watched as the old Rolls moved over the dirt road leading to an airport security gate, trailing a wisp of dust behind its bumper. He looked up at an old worn light pole and saw a tiny security camera mounted on the top. Perhaps that would satisfy his curiosity as to where the security guards were hiding by having recorded their movements.
With a small remote, he deactivated the hangar's extensive alarm system and opened a door that appeared to have been frozen shut since World War II. He hoisted the duffel bag on his shoulder and walked inside. The interior was dustproof and dark. Not a crack of light showed anywhere. Then he closed the door and pressed a light switch, throwing the hangar into a blaze of light and a prism of color.
The floor of the hangar, painted in a gleaming white epoxy, was covered with an array of fifty antique and classic automobiles painted in a myriad of bright colors. Other displays included a German jet aircraft from World War II and a Ford trimotor aircraft from the early 1930s that was called a Tin Goose. A turn-of-the-century railroad car sat on raised rails against one wall of the hangar. As if added for conversation pieces, there was a cast-iron bathtub with an outboard motor, and a peculiar inflatable raft with a makeshift cabin and mast. The entire collection was guarded by a tall Haida Indian totem pole.
Pitt paused to sweep his eyes over the eclectic collection and scan the wording on many of the vintage signs that hung from the high arched ceiling, including the Burma Shave signs. Satisfied everything was in its place, he climbed a wrought-iron spiral staircase to his apartment above the floor of the warehouse.
The interior looked like a nautical museum. Glass-encased ship models blended with wooden-spoke helms and compass binnacles, ship's bells, and copper and brass diver's helmets. The living room, study, single bedroom with bath, and the kitchen/dining room measured no more than eleven hundred square feet.
Though he was tired beyond feeling, he unpacked the duffel bag and threw his dirty clothes on the floor of the small closet that held his washer and dryer. Then he stepped into the bathroom and took a long shower, turning the hot steaming water against one wall of the stall while he rested against the floor on his back with his legs straight up in one corner. He was relaxing with a Juan Julio silver tequila on the rocks when a ship's bell announced the presence of a visitor at the front door.
Pitt peered into one of the four TV monitors mounted between two bookshelves and recognized NUMAs deputy director, Rudi Gunn, standing on his doorstep. He pressed a switch on a remote and said, 'Come on in, Rudi. I'm upstairs.'
Gunn climbed the staircase and entered the apartment. A small man with thinning hair and a Roman nose, Gunn gazed through thick hornrimmed glasses. A former commander in the Navy and first in his class at the Naval Academy, Gunn was highly intelligent and well respected among the staff at NUMA. His blue eyes were wide and magnified behind the lenses of his glasses, and he had a dazed expression on his face.
'Two guys with automatic rifles in camouflage gear scared the hell out of me until I proved I was a friend of yours from NUMA.'
'Admiral Sandecker's idea.'
'I knew he hired a security agency, but I had no idea they had magical powers and could appear out of nowhere. All that was missing was a puff of smoke.'
'They're very efficient,' said Pitt.
'I was briefed on your situation in Telluride,' said Gunn, sinking into a chair. 'The word circulating around town is that your life isn't worth two cents.'
Pitt brought him a glass of iced tea from the kitchen. Gunn seldom drank anything with alcohol except an occasional beer. 'Not to those jokers from the Fourth Empire. I suspect they'll spare no expense to inter me in a tomb.'
'I took the liberty of looking under a few rocks.' Gunn paused and downed half the glass of iced tea. 'I met with some friends at the CIA-'
'What interest could the CIA possibly have in a domestic crime?'
'They suspect the killers you ran up against in the Pandora Mine might be part of an international crime syndicate.'
'Terrorists?' asked Pitt.
Gunn shook his head. 'They're not religious or cult-driven fanatics. But their agenda is still secret. CIA operatives, Interpol agents- nobody's been able to penetrate the organization yet. All the foreign intelligence agencies know is that it exists. Where it operates from or who controls it, they haven't a clue. Their killers show up, as they did in Telluride, murder their victims, and vanish.'
'What crimes are they involved in, besides murder?'
'That seems to be a mystery, too.'
Pitt's eyes narrowed. 'Who ever heard of a crime syndicate with no motives?'
Gunn shrugged. 'I know it sounds crazy, but they have yet to leave even a tiny thread.'
'They've got two of the scum in Telluride to interrogate.'
Gunn's eyebrows rose. 'You haven't heard?'
'Heard what?'
'A Sheriff Eagan from Telluride, Colorado, called Admiral Sandecker only an hour ago. The prisoners were found dead.'
'Damn!' Pitt snapped irritably. 'I expressly told the sheriff to search them for cyanide pills.'
'Nothing so mundane as poison. According to Eagan, a bomb was smuggled into their jail cell. They were blown to pieces, along with a deputy who was on guard nearby.'
'Life is cheap to these people,' Pitt said acidly.
'So I gathered.'
'What's the next step?'
'The admiral is sending you on a deep-sea geological project in the middle of the Pacific, where you'll be reasonably safe from any more assassination attempts.'
Pitt grinned slyly. 'I won't go.'
'He knew you'd say that.' Gunn grinned back. 'Besides, you're too important in the investigation to send off to the boondocks. As it stands, you've had more contact with this group than anyone else, and lived to tell about it. High-level investigators want to talk to you. Eight o'clock in the morning…' He paused to hand Pitt a slip of paper. 'Here's the address. Be there. Drive your car into the open garage and wait for instructions.'
'Are James Bond and Jack Ryan coming, too?'
Gunn made a wry face. 'Funny' He finished off the iced tea and walked outside onto the balcony overlooking the fabulous collection below. 'That's interesting.'
'What?'
'You referred to the assassins as being from the Fourth Empire.'
'Their words, not mine.'
