'Safe and sound and back at their work.'
'How many men in your command?'
'Two combat units, Admiral. Ten men in all, including myself.'
Sandecker's eyebrows raised. 'Only ten men, did you say?'
'Ordinarily for an assault of this nature,' Fergus said matter-of-factly, 'we'd have used just one combat unit, but Admiral Kemper thought it best to double our force to be on the safe side.'
'The Navy's advanced some since I served,' Sandecker said wistfully.
'Any casualties?' Pitt asked.
'Until five minutes ago, two of my men wounded, nothing serious, and one missing.'
'Where did you come from?' The question was from Merker's lips. He was staring malevolently over the shoulder of a wary SEAL. 'There was no ship in the area, no aircraft was sighted. How . . . ?'
Fergus looked at Pitt questioningly. Pitt nodded. 'Permission granted to inform our former colleague the facts of life, Lieutenant. He can muse over your answers while he's sitting in a cell on death row.'
'We came aboard the hard way,' Fergus obliged. 'From fifty feet below the surface through the torpedo tubes of a nuclear submarine. That's how I lost one of my men; the water was rough as hell. A wave must have crushed him against the Titanic's hull while we were taking turns climbing the boarding ladders dropped over the side by Mr. Pitt.'
'Strange that no one else saw you come on board,' Spencer murmured.
'Not strange at all,' Pitt said. 'While I was helping Lieutenant Fergus and his team come over the aft cargo deck bulwarks, and then tucking thern away in the chief steward's old cabin on C Deck, the rest of you were assembled in the gymnasium awaiting my soul-stirring speech on personal sacrifice.'
Spencer shook his head. 'Talk about fooling all of the people some of the time.'
'I have to hand it to you,' Gunn said, 'you had us all flim-flammed.'
'At that, the Russians nearly stole the ballgame. We didn't expect them to make their play until the storm quieted down. Boarding during the lull of the hurricane's eye was a masterstroke. And it almost worked. Without either Giordino, or the admiral or me to warn the lieutenant-we three were the only ones privy to the SEALs' presence-Fergus would have never known when to launch his attack on the boarders.'
'I don't mind admitting,' Sandecker said, 'for a while there I thought that we'd had it. Giordino and I prisoners of Prevlov, and Pitt thought to be dead.'
'God knows,' Pitt said, 'if the helicopter hadn't wedged itself into the Promenade Deck, I'd be asleep in the deep right now.'
'As it was,' Fergus said, 'Mr. Pitt looked like death warmed over when he stumbled in the chief steward's cabin. A hardy man, this one. Half-drowned, his head split open, and yet he still insisted on guiding my team through this floating museum until we located your Soviet visitors.'
Dana was looking at Pitt in a peculiar way. 'How long were you hiding in the shadows before you made your grand entrance?'
Pitt grinned slyly. 'For a minute prior to your striptease.'
'You bastard. You stood there and let me make an ass out of myself,' she flared. 'You let them use me like I was a cut of beef in a butcher store window.'
'I used you too, dear heart, as a matter of necessity. After I found Woodson's body and the smashed radio in the gymnasium I didn't need a gypsy to tell me the boys from the Ukraine had boarded the ship. I then rounded up Fergus and his men and led them down to the boiler rooms figuring the Russians would already be guarding the pumping crew. I was right. First priorities first. Whoever controlled the pumps controlled the derelict. When I saw that I would be more hindrance than help in overcoming the guards, I borrowed a SEAL and came looking for the rest of you. After wandering through half the ship we finally heard voices coming out of the dining saloon. Then I ordered the SEAL to hightail it below for reinforcements.'
'Then it was all a great big stalling tactic,' Dana said.
'Exactly. I needed every second I could beg, borrow, or steal until Fergus showed up and evened the odds. That's why I held off until the last second to put in an appearance.'
'A high stakes gamble,' Sandecker said. 'You cut Act Two a bit fine, didn't you?'
'I had two things going for me,' Pitt explained. 'One was compassion. I know you, Admiral. In spite of your gargoyle exterior, you still help little old ladies across streets and feed stray animals. You might have waited until the last instant to give in, but you would have given in.' Then Pitt put his arms around Dana and slowly produced a nasty looking weapon from a pocket of the jacket draped on her shoulders. 'Number two was my insurance policy. Fergus loaned it to me before the party began. It's called a Stoner weapon. It shoots a cloud of tiny needlelike flachettes. I could have cut down Prevlov and half his men with one burst.'
'And I thought you were being a gentleman,' Dana said with a contrived bitter tone. 'You only hung your jacket on me so they wouldn't find the gun when they searched you.'
'You have to admit, that your . . . ahem . . . exposed condition made for an ideal distraction.'
'Beggin' your pardon, sir,' said Chief Bascom. 'But why on earth would this rusty old bucket of bolts interest the Russians?'
'My very thoughts,' Spencer added. 'What's the big deal?'
'I guess it's a secret no longer.' Pitt shrugged. 'It's not the ship the Russians were after. It's a rare element called byzanium that sank with the Titanic back in 1912. Properly processed and installed in a sophisticated defense system, so I'm told, it will make intercontinental ballistic missiles about as outdated as flying dinosaurs.'
Chief Bascom let out a long low whistle. 'And you mean to say that stuff is still below decks somewhere?'
'Buried under several tons of debris, but it's still down there.'
'You'll never live to see it, Pitt. None of you . . . none of us will. The Titanic will be totally destroyed by morning.' There was no anger in Prevlov's face, but something touching on complacent satisfaction. 'Did you really think every contingency was not allowed for? Every possibility for failure not backed up by an alternate plan? If we cannot have the byzanium, then neither can you.'
Pitt looked at him with what seemed to be bemusement.
'Forget any hopes you entertain of the cavalry, or in your case, the cossacks, galloping to the rescue, Prevlov. You made a hell of a try, but you were playing against an American idiom known as a stacked deck. You prepared for everything, everything, that is, except a setup in preparation for a double cross. I don't know how the scheme was nurtured. It must have been a wonder of creative cunning, and you fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I'm sorry, Captain Prevlov, but to the victor belong the spoils.'
'The byzanium belongs to the Russian people,' Prevlov said gravely. 'It was raped from our soil by your government. It is not we who are the robbers, Pitt, it is you.'
'A moot point. If it were a work of historical art, my State Department would no doubt see it off on the next ship back to Murmansk. But not when it's the prime ingredient for a strategic weapon. If our roles were reversed, Prevlov, you wouldn't give it away any more than we would.'
'Then it must be destroyed.'
'You're wrong. A weapon that does not take lives, but simply protects them, must never be destroyed.'
'Your kind of sanctimonious philosophy simply affirms what our leaders have known all along. You cannot win against us. Someday, in the not too distant future, your precious experiment in democracy will go the way of the Greek senate. A piece of an era for students of communism to study, nothing more.'
'Don't hold your breath, Comrade. Your kind will have to show a lot more finesse before you can run the world.'
'Read your history,' Prevlov said with an ominous smile. 'The people whom the sophisticated nations down through the centuries have referred to as the barbarians have always won in the end.'
Pitt smiled back courteously as the SEALS herded Prevlov, Merker, and Drummer up the grand staircase to a stateroom where they would be secured under heavy guard.
But Pitt's smile was not genuine. Prevlov was right.
The barbarians always won in the end.
SOUTHBY
