'Yes,' Kippmann repeated. 'But Kelly and Hermit Limited have the one thing Castro lacked-a foothold. Kelly will have French Guiana.' He paused in reflection a moment. 'A foothold as sure and as firm as the Allies had in 1944 when they invaded France at Normandy.'
Pitt shook his head slowly. 'And I thought Kelly was insane. The bastard just might do it. He just might pull his fantastic scheme off.'
Kippmann nodded. 'Let us say, considering all facts, at the present time the odd makers would probably lay their bets in favor of Kelly and Hermit Limited.'
'Maybe we should let him do it,' Sandecker said.
'Maybe, he was somehow meant to have his utopia.'
'No, it is not meant to be,' Kippmann said calmly.
'It can never happen.'
'You seem pretty certain,' Pitt said.
Kippmann stared at him and grinned thinly.
'Didn't I tell you? One of the birds that tried to kill you in that doctor's office decided to cooperate. He told us quite a story.'
'It seems there are a number of things you forgot to tell us.' Sandecker grunted acidly.
Kippmann went on. 'Kelly's glorious enterprise is doomed to failure; I have it on the best authority.' He paused, his grin broadening. 'As soon as Hermit Limited is entrenched in the Dominican Republic and French Guiana, there will be a proxy fight among the board of directors. Major Pitts passing acquaintance, Mr. Oskar Rondheim, intends to emate Kelly, Marks, Von Hummel and the rest and take over as chairman of the board. Sad to say, Mr. Rondheim's future intentions will hardly be classed as honorable and benevolent.'
Tidi was sitting prettily in a wheelchair beside Lillie's bed when Pitt entered the hospital room, followed by Sandecker and Kippmann.
'The doctors tell me you'll both live,' Pitt said, smiling. 'Just thought I'd… ah. offer my farewells.', drop by and
'You're leaving?' Tidi asked sadly.
'Afraid so. Someone has to identify Rondheim's triggermen.'
'You-be careful,' she stammered. 'After all you went through to save us, we don't want to lose you now.'
Lillie raised his head stiffly. 'Why didn't you say something out there in the ravine?' he asked seriously.
'God, I had no idea your ribs were kicked in.'
'It made no difference. I was the only one who could walk. Besides, I never fail to get carried away when I have a good audience.'
Lillie smiled. 'You had the best.'
Pitt asked, 'How's your back?'
'I'll be in this miserable body cast longer than I care to think about, but at least I'll be able to dance again when it comes off.'
Pitt stared down at Tidi. Her face was pale and tears were beginning to well in her eyes and Pitt understood.
'When the big day arrives,' Pitt said, forcing a grin, 'we'll celebrate with a party, even if it means I have to drink your old man's beer.'
'That I'll have to see.'
Sandecker cleared his throat. 'Ah… I take it that Miss Royal is as good a nurse as she is a secretary. Lillie grasped Tidi's hand. 'I'd break a bone every day of the week if it always meant meeting someone like her.'
There was a short pause. 'I think we should be leaving,' Kippmann said. 'Our Air Force transportation is waiting even now.'
Pitt leaned down and kissed Tidi and then shook Lillie's hand. 'Look after yourselves. I'll be expecting an invitation to that party soon.' He turned his palms upward and shrugged helplessly. 'God only knows where I'll be able to find a date who'd be seen in public with a battered face like this.'
Tidi laughed at that. He squeezed her shoulder and then turned and left the room.
In the car on the way to the air base, Pitt stared out the window, his eyes unseeing, his mind back in the hospital. 'He'll never walk again, will he?'
Kippmann shook his head sadly. 'It's doubtful… very doubtful.'
Fifteen minutes later, without a further word being spoken, they arrived at the Keilavik Air Field to find an Air Force B-92 reconnaissance bomber waiting by the terminal. Another ten minutes and the supersonic jet was speeding down the runway, soaring out over the ocean.
Sandecker, alone in the terminal, watched the plane lifting into the azure sky, his eyes following it until it disappeared into the distance of the cloudless horizon. Then, wearily, he walked back to the car.
Chapter 19
Because of the seven-hour time gain in flying from east to west and the twelve-hundred-mile-per-hour-plus speed of the jet bomber, it was still on the morning of the same day he left Iceland when a bleary-eyed Pitt yawned, stretched in the confined limitations of the tiny cabin, and looking idly out the navigator's side window, watched the tiny shadow of the aircraft dart across the green slopes of the Sierra Madre mountains.
And what now? Pitt smiled wryly back at his reflection in the (tiass as the bomber now swung out of the foothills and across the smog-blanketed San Gabriel Valley. Gazing down at the Pacific Ocean as it came into view, he cleared his mind of the past and directed it on the immediate future. He didn't know how nor did he have even a remote scrap for a plan, but he knew, no matter the obstacles, he knew he was going to kill Oskar Rondheim.
His mind abruptly returned to the present as the landing gear thumped down and locked into place at the same moment that Dean Kippmann nudged him on the arm.
'Have a nice nap?'
'Slept like the dead.'
The B-92 touched down and the engines screamed as the pilot threw the thrust into reverse. The day outside looked warm and comfortable and the California sun gleamed blindingly on the long rows of military jets parked along the taxiways. Pitt read the twelve-foot-high letters painted across a giant hangar: WELCOME TO EL TORO MARINE AIR STATION.
The bomber's engines slowly died and an automobile sped over the apron as Pitt, Kippmann and the Air Force crew climbed down a narrow ladder to the concrete. Two men unreeled from a blue Ford stationwagon and approached Kippmann. Greetings and handshakes were exchanged. 'Then they all walked back to the car. Pitt, left standing with nothing to do, followed them.
Beside an open car door the three men huddled together and conversed in undertones while Pitt stood several feet away and enjoyed a cigarette. Finally Kippmann turned and came over.
'It seems we're about to crash a family reunion.'
'Meaning?
'They're all here. Kelly, Marks, Rondheim, the whole lot.'
'Here in California?' Pitt asked incredulously.
'Yes, we had them traced as soon as they left Iceland. The serial number you found on that black —,jet came home a winner. Hermit Limited purchased six of the same model with consecutive numbers from the factory. We have every one of the remaining five planes under surveillance at this moment.'
'I'm impressed. That was fast work.'
Kippmann dropped a smile. 'Not all that tough. it might have been if the planes had been scattered around the globe, but as it is, they're all sitting neatly side by side exactly eight miles from here at the Orange County Airport.'
'Then Kelly's headquarters must be nearby.'
'In the hills behind Laguna Beach, a fifty-acre complex,' Kippmann said, pointing in a southwesterly direction. 'Incidentally, Hermit Limited has over three hundred employees on the payroll who they're doir, classified political
