elevator. They returned his smile, accompanied with the usual combination of cursory and demure glances that women are prone to allow for strange men, and then wiggled past him into the lobby, sneaking an additional peek at him over their shoulders.
A moment later, playing the role of the wounded Warrior to perfection, Pitt leaned heavily on his cane and limped from the elevator onto the thick carpet of the eighth floor. In the center of the anteroom a dozen girls, displaying an unrestricted forest of nyloned legs, sat at a dozen desks and furiously assaulted a dozen typewriters, never once hesitating to look up at him. He moved slowly over to a well-bosomed blond whose desk top contained a small rectangular sign: “Information.” Then for a moment he stared down at her, admiring the view.
“Excuse me.”
She didn’t hear him over the din of the clacking machines.
“Excuse me,” Pitt repeated loudly.
She turned and noticed him. “May I help you?” The voice was cool, the big hazel eyes unfriendly. Pitt admitted to himself that he had to go along with her icy greeting. The white turtleneck sweater, the green California sport coat, the handkerchief casually fluffed from the breast pocket hardly categorized him as an executive or important Washington bureaucrat.
“I would like to see the Director of the Bureau.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning back to her typewriter. “The Director is extremely busy and cannot see anyone.”
Contempt and anger began to mount in Pitt. “Inspector Zacynthus made an appointment for me—”
“Inspector Zacynthus’ office is on the fourth floor,” the girl droned mechanically.
A gunshot couldn’t have received more attention than the resounding bang from Pitt’s cane as he slammed it on top of the receptionist’s desk. The typists’ eyes burst wide, and their hands froze above keyboards, sending the anteroom into a sudden dead silence. Her face drained of all color, the large-cheated blond stared up at Pitt. a fear mushrooming inside her.
“OK, dearheart.” Pitt said menacingly. “You get up off your well-rounded little bottom and you go and inform the Director that Major Dirk Pitt is waiting to keep the appointment set by Inspector Zacynthus.”
“Pitt… Major Pitt from NUMA,” the blond gasped. “Oh I’m sorry, sir. But I thought—”
“Yes, I know,” Pitt offered. “I’m out of uniform.”
The blond jumped from her desk, snagging a stocking in her haste. “Right this way, Major. They’re expecting you.”
Pitt grinned at her, grinned at the other girls sitting awed in their chairs, felt self-satisfied at the admiring expressions from all twenty-four eyes, the bovine, adoring gaze reserved for celebrities and movie stars.
It inflated his male ego.
“Keep typing girls,” he said good-naturedly.
“Mustn’t keep the Bureau waiting for all those letters and reports.”
The blond led him down a long hallway, slowing her pace every so often to allow him to catch up. She halted and rapped on a walnut stained door. “Major Pitt,” she announced, and then stood aside to let him pass through.
Three men rose as he walked into the room. The fourth, Giordino, remained comfortably anchored to a long leather couch.
“I thought I'd never see the day,” he said. “Dirk Pitt hobbling around on a cane.”
“Just practicing for my senile years,” Pitt retorted.
A short, red-haired man with a zeppelin-shaped cigar stashed jauntily between his lips came over and shook Pitt’s, hand. “Welcome back, Dirk. Congratulations on a great job in the Aegean.”
Pitt stared into the griffin-featured face of Admiral James Sandecker, the crusty chief of the National Underwater Marine Agency.”
“Thank you, Admiral. Any word on the Teaser yet?”
“Only that it’s alive and still swimming,” Sandecker answered. “Since Gunn had it flown over last week in a special tank, I haven’t been able to get near the goddamn thing — a horde of scientists have been crowded around it, ogling their damn eyes right out of their sockets. They promised me a preliminary report by morning.”
Zacynthus came across to greet Pitt. He seemed younger, much more relaxed than when. Pitt had last seen him, three weeks previously.
“Good to see you walking again,” Zacynthus said smiling. “You look as mean and nasty as ever.”
He took Pitt by the arm and led him over to a tall man standing by the window and introduced them. Pitt studied the Director of the Bureau and was studied in return by hard gray eyes that peered intently from a high- checked. pockmarked face; it was a face straight out of a police lineup. Pitt amusingly reflected that the Director looked more like a narcotics smuggler than the chief administrator of several thousand federal investigators. The Director spoke first.
“I've looked forward to meeting you, Major Pitt The Bureau is deeply grateful for your assistance.” The voice was low and very precise.
“I didn’t do much. Inspector Zacynthus and Colonel Zeno carried most of the load.”
The Director met his eyes evenly. “That may be, but you carry the scars.” He motioned Pitt to a chair and offered him a cigarette. “Did you have a good flight from Greece?”
Pitt lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Air Force cargo planes aren’t exactly famous for their cuisine and royal coachman service, but I must admit that it was considerably more relaxing than the flight in.”
Admiral Sandecker gave Pitt a puzzled look. “Why the Air Force? You could have flown from Athens on Pan Am or TWA.”
“Souvenirs,” Pitt laughed. “One of my mementos of Thasos was too bulky to fit in the luggage compartment of a commercial airliner. Colonel Lewis came to my rescue and helped me hitch a ride on a half-empty Air Force cargo plane that was headed stateside.”
“Your wound,” Sandecker nodded at Pitt’s leg. “Healing all right?”
“It’s still a bit stiff,” Pitt answered. “Nothing a thirty day medical leave won’t cure.”
The Admiral eyed Pitt shrewdly for a moment through a blue haze of cigar smoke. “Two weeks.” The tone reeked of cool authority. “I have more faith in your recuperative powers than you have.”
The Director cleared his throat. “I’ve read Inspector Zacynthus’ report with a great deal of interest.
There is, however, one point he didn’t cover. It isn’t important. but out of personal curiosity, I wonder if you could tell me. Major how you came to the conclusion that Minerva Lines ships had the capacity to carry submarines?”
Pitt smiled with his eyes. “I guess you might say, sir, the secret was written in the sand.”
The Director’s lips curled in a humorless smile. He wasn’t used to indirect answers.. “Very Homeric, Major, but hardly the answer I had in mind.”
“Strange but true,” Pitt said. “After finding no sign of the heroin on board the Queen Artemisia, I swam to the beach and began doodling with a stick in the sand. A detachable submarine seemed like an abstract idea at first. but the more
I doodled, the more concrete it became.”
The Director leaned back in his chair and shook his head sadly. “Forty years, a hundred agents from twelve different nations all struggling under the most adverse conditions imaginable to break von Till’s smuggling operation. Three of those agents gave up their lives in the struggle” He looked gravely across the desk at Pitt “Somehow it almost seems a tragic joke that our efforts overlooked a solution that was so apparent to someone standing on the outside looking in.”
Pitt stared at him in silence.
“By the way,” the Director continued suddenly cheerful, “I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to hear the results of our Galveston stakeout?”
“No sir.” Pitt carefully tapped an ash in an ashtray. “Until five minutes ago I haven’t seen or talked to Inspector Zacynthus since we parted on Thasos. nearly three weeks ago I’ve had no way of knowing whether my small assist paid off for you in Galveston or not.”
Zacynthus looked at the Director. “May I fill Major Pitt in, sir?”
The Director nodded.
Zacynthus turned to Pitt.
