If any other man had spoken those words, Gunn would have called him a liar. But Pitt he didn't doubt for a second.
'Mind giving me a clue?'
Pitt half-turned. 'You're an art collector of sorts, aren't you, Rudy?'
'My small collection of abstracts won't match the New York Museum of Modern Art, but it's respectable.' He looked at Pitt in uncomprehending curiosity. 'What has this got to do with anything?'
'If I'm right, we may be getting into art in a big way.'
'Are we on the same frequency?'
'Christo,' said Pitt as he turned and refaced the bulkhead.
'We're about to review a Christo-inspired sculpture.'
A light snow had turned to a miserable, wind-driven sleet over the southernmost large city in the world. Punta Arenas had flourished as a port of call before the Panama Canal was built, and died afterward. The city gradually returned as a sheepraising center and was now booming after productive oil fields were discovered close by.
Hollis and Dillenger stood on a harbor pier, waiting anxiously to board the Sounder. The temperature had dropped several degrees below freezing; it was a damp, harsh cold that bit at their exposed faces.
They felt like cornels in the Arctic. Through the cooperation of Chilean authorities, they had gone undercover and exchanged their battle dress for the uniforms of immigration officials.
As scheduled, their aircraft had landed at a nearby military airport while it was still dark. The storm came as an added bonus, holding visibility to a few hundred meters and keeping their arrival unobserved.
The Chilean military command was most generous in their hospitality and provided hangar space for Hollis's small flight of C-140s and Ospreys to park out of sight.
They moved from the shelter of a warehouse as the research ship's mooring lines were dropped over the dock bollards and the gangway lowered. Both men flinched as the full force of the icy wind struck them.
A tall man with a craggy face and a friendly grin, wearing a ski jacket, appeared on the bridge wing. He cupped his hands around his mouth.
'Senor L6pez?' he shouted through the sleet.
'Si!' Hollis yelled back.
'Who's your friend?'
'Mi amigo es Sefior Jones,' Hollis answered, nodding at Dillenger.
'I've heard better Spanish in a Chinese restaurant,' Dillenger muttered.
'Please come on board. After you'reach the main deck, take the ladder to your right and come up to the bridge.'
'Gracias.
The two leaders of America's elite fighting force dutifully walked up the slanted gangway and climbed the ladder as directed. Hollis's curiosity was eating him up. An hour before reaching Punta Arenas, he'd received an urgent coded communication from General Dodge ordering him to covertly meet the Sounder when she docked in port. No explanation, no further instructions. He knew only from a hurried briefing in Virginia that the survey ship and its crew were responsible for discovering the deception between the Mexican container ship and the Lady Flamborough. Nothing else. He was most interested in learning why she suddenly appeared in Punta Arenas at almost the same time as his SOF
team.
Hollis did not like being left in the dark, and he was in an intensely testy mood.
The man who hailed him was still standing on the bridge wing. Hollis looked into mesmeric green eyes-very opaque green indeed. They belonged to a lean, broad-shouldered man whose uncovered black hair was speckled with white flakes of ice. He stared at the two officers for all of five seconds, time enough to complete a survey. Then he removed his right hand slowly from a coat pocket and stuck it out.
'Colonel Hollis, Major Dillenger, my name is Dirk Pitt.'
'Seems you know more about us than we do you, Mr. Pitt.
'A situation that will be quickly rectified,' Pitt said cheerfully.
'Please follow me to the Captain's cabin. The coffee's on, and we can talk where it's warm and private.'
They gratefully stepped out of the cold and trailed Pitt down one deck to Stewart's quarters. Once inside, Pitt introduced Gunn, Giordino and Captain Stewart. The SOF officers shook hands all around and gratefully accepted the coffee.
'Please sit down,' said Stewart, offering chairs.
Dillenger sank into a chair, but Hollis shook his head.
'Thank you, I'd rather stand.' He cast a questioning look at the four men from NUMA. 'If I can speak frankly, would you mind telling me what in hell is going on?'
'Obviously it concerns the Lady Flamborough, ' said Pitt.
'What's there to discuss? The terrorists have destroyed her. '
'She's still very much afloat,' Pitt assured him.
'I've received no word to that effect,' said Hollis. 'The last satellite photo shows no trace of her.'
'Take my word for it.'
'Show me your evidence.'
'You don't screw around, do you?'
