remarkably accurate.
'Did you talk with him during the trip to the NUMA
'Couldn't. I blacked out right after he picked me up and didn't come to until I found myself here in Washington in the hospital.'
Donner gestured to Seagram. 'We'd better get a make on this guy, quick.'
Seagram nodded. 'I'll start with Admiral Sandecker. Pitt must have been connected with the research vessel. Perhaps someone in NUMA can identify him.'
'I can't help wondering how much he knows,' Donner said staring at the floor.
Seagram didn't answer. His mind had strayed to a shadowy figure on a snow-covered island in the Arctic. Dirk Pitt. He repeated the name in his mind. Somehow it seemed strangely familiar.
10
The telephone rang at 1210 A.M. Sandecker popped open one eye and stared at it murderously for several moments. Finally, he gave in and answered it on the eighth ring.
'Yes, what is it?' he demanded.
'Gene Seagram here. Admiral. Did I catch you in bed?'
'Oh, hell no.' Sandecker yawned. 'I never retire before I write five chapters on my autobiography, rob at least two liquor stores, and rape a cabinet member's wife. Okay, what are you after, Seagram?'
'Something has come up.'
'Forget it. I'm not endangering any more of my men and ships to bail your agents out of enemy territory.' He used the word enemy as though the country were at war.
'It's not that at all.'
'Then what?'
'I need a line on someone.'
'Why come to me in the dead of night?'
'I think you might know him.'
'What's the name?'
'Pitt. Dirk. The last name is Pitt, probably spelled P-i-t-t.'
'Just to humor an old man's curiosity, what makes you think I know him?'
'I have no proof, but I'm certain he has a connection with NUMA.'
'I have over two thousand people under me. I can't memorize all their names.'
'Could you check him out? It's imperative that I talk to him.'
'Seagram,' Sandecker grunted irritably, 'you're a monumental pain in the ass. Did it ever occur to you to call my personnel director during normal working hours?'
'My apologies,' Seagram said. 'I happened to be working late and-'
'Okay, if I dig up this character, I'll have him get in touch with you.'
'I'd appreciate it.' Seagram's tone remained impersonal. 'By the way, the man your people rescued up in the Barents Sea is getting along nicely. The surgeon on the First Attempt did a magnificent job of bullet removal.'
'Koplin, wasn't it?'
'Yes, he should be up and around in a few days.'
'That was a near thing, Seagram. If the Russians had cottoned onto us, we'd have a nasty incident on our hands about now.'
'What can I say?' Seagram said helplessly.
'You can say good night and let me get back to sleep,' Sandecker snarled. 'But first, tell me how this Pitt figures into the picture.'
'Koplin was about to be captured by a Russian security guard when this guy appears out of a blizzard and kills the guard, carries Koplin across fifty miles of stormy water, not to mention stemming the blood flow from his wounds, and somehow deposits him on board your research vessel, ready for surgery.'
'What do you intend to do when you find him?'
'That's between Pitt and myself.'
'I see,' Sandecker said. ''Well, good night, Mr. Seagram.'
'Thank you, Admiral. Good-by.'
Sandecker hung up and then sat there a few moments, a bemused expression on his face. 'Killed a Russian security guard and rescued an American agent. Dirk Pitt . . . you sly son of a bitch.'
11
United's early flight touched down at Denver's Stapleton Airfield at eight in the morning. Mel Donner passed quickly through the baggage claim and settled behind the wheel of an Avis Plymouth for the fifteen-minute drive to 400 West Colfax Avenue and the Rocky Mountain News. As he followed the west-bound traffic, his gaze alternated between the windshield and a street map stretched open beside him on the front seat.
He had never been in Denver before, and he was mildly surprised to see a pall of smog hanging over the city. He expected to be confronted with the dirty brown and gray cloud over places like Los Angeles and New York, but Denver had always conjured up visions in his mind of a city cleansed by crystal clean air, nestled under the protective shadow of Purple Mountain Majesties. Even these were a disappointment; Denver sat naked on the edge of the great plains, at least twenty-five miles from the nearest foothills.
He parked the car and found his way to the newspaper's library. The girl behind the counter peered back at him through tear-shaped glasses and smiled an uneven-toothed, friendly smile.
'Can I help you?'
'Do you have an issue of your paper dated November 17, 1911?'
'Oh my, that does go back.' She twisted her lips. 'I can give you a photocopy, but the original issues are at the State Historical Society.'
'I only need to see page three.'
'If you care to wait, it'll take about fifteen minutes to track down the film of November 17, 1911, and run the page you want through the copy machine.'
'Thank you. By the way, would you happen to have a business directory for Colorado?'
'We certainly do.' She reached under the counter and laid a booklet on the smudged plastic top.
Donner sat down to study the directory as the girl disappeared to search out his request. There was no listing of a Guthrie and Sons Foundry in Pueblo. He thumbed to the T's. Nothing there either for the Thor Forge and Ironworks of Denver. It was almost too much to expect, he reasoned, for two firms still to be in business after nearly eight decades.
The fifteen minutes came and went, and the girl hadn't returned, so he idly leafed through the directory to pass the time. With the exception of Kodak, Martin Marietta, and Gates Rubber, there were very few companies he'd heard of. Then suddenly he stiffened. Under the J listings his eyes picked out a Jensen and Thor Metal Fabricators in Denver. He tore out the page, stuffed it in his pocket, and tossed the booklet back on the counter.
'Here you are, sir,' the girl said. 'That'll be fifty cents.'
Donner paid and quickly scanned the headline in the upper-right-hand corner of the old newsprint's reproduction. The article covered a mine disaster.
'Is it what you were looking for?' the girl asked.
'It will have to do,' he said as he walked away.
Jensen and Thor Metal Fabricators was situated between the Burlington-Northern rail yards and the South Platte River; a massive corrugated monstrosity that would have blotted any landscape except the one that surrounded it. Inside the work shed, overhead cranes shuffled enormous lengths of rusty pipe from pile to pile, while stamping machines pounded away with an intolerable clangor that made Donner's eardrums cringe from the attack. The main office sat off to one side behind sound-proofed aggregate concrete walls and tall arched windows.
An attractive, large-breasted receptionist escorted him down a shag-carpeted hall to a spacious paneled office. Carl Jensen, Jr., came around the desk and shook hands with Donner. He was young; no more than twenty- eight and wore his hair long. He had a neatly trimmed mustache and wore an expensive plaid suit. He looked for all the world like a UCLA graduate; Donner couldn't see him as anything else.
'Thank you for taking the time to see me, Mr. Jensen.'
