The President looked at Jordan. “Have any more been found within our borders?”
“Six.” The Central Intelligence Director grinned slightly. “Now that we have some breathing space, we should track down the rest without further risk to national security.”
“Tsuboi and Yoshishu?”
“Believed drowned.”
The President looked pleased, and he felt it. He turned and faced everyone in the room. “Gentlemen,” he announced, “on behalf of a grateful American people, who will never know how narrowly you saved them from disaster, I thank you.”
The crisis was over, but already another had erupted. Later that afternoon, fighting broke out along the border of Iran and Turkey, and the first reports came in of a Cuban military Mig-25 shooting down a United States commercial airliner filled with tourists returning from Jamaica.
The search for one man quickly became lost in the shuffle. The imaging technology on board the Pyramider satellite was shifted toward world events of more importance. Nearly four weeks would pass before the satellite’s eyes were turned back to the sea off Japan.
But no trace of Big Ben was found.
Part 5
Obituary
74
I
T WAS ANNOUNCED
today that Dirk Pitt, Special Projects Director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency, is missing and presumed dead after an accident in the sea off Japan.
Acclaimed for his exploits on land and under the sea that include his discoveries of the pre-Columbian Byzantine shipwreck Serapis off Greenland, the incredible cache from the Library of Alexandria, and the La Dorada treasure in Cuba, among others, Pitt also directed the raising of the Titanic.
The son of Senator George Pitt of California and his wife, Susan, Pitt was born and raised in Newport Beach, California. He attended the Air Force Academy, where he played quarterback on the Falcon football team, and graduated twelfth in his class. Becoming a pilot, Pitt remained in active service for ten years, rising to the rank of major. He then became permanently attached to NUMA at the request of Admiral James Sandecker.
The admiral said briefly yesterday that Dirk Pitt was an extremely resourceful and audacious man. During the course of his career, he had saved many lives, including those of Sandecker himself and the President during an incident in the Gulf of Mexico. Pitt never lacked for ingenuity or creativity. No project was too difficult for him to accomplish.
He was not a man you can forget.
Sandecker sat on the running board of the Stutz in Pitt’s hangar and stared sadly at the obituary in the newspaper. “He did so much, it seems an injustice to condense his life to so few words.”
Giordino, his face expressionless, walked around the Messerschmitt Me-262A-la Luftwaffe jet fighter. True to his word, Gert Halder had looked the other way when Pitt and Giordino had smuggled the aircraft out of the bunker, hauled it on a truck under canvas, and arranged for it to be hoisted on board a Danish cargo ship bound for the States. Only two days earlier the ship had arrived in Baltimore, where Giordino had waited to transport the aircraft to Pitt’s hangar in Washington. Now it sat on its tricycle landing gear amid the other classic machinery of Pitt’s collection.
“Dirk should have been here to see this,” Giordino said heavily. He ran his hand across the nose of the mottled green fuselage with its light gray underbelly and stared at the muzzles of the four thirty-millimeter cannon that poked from the forward cowl. “He’d have loved to get his hands on it.”
It was a moment neither of them had foreseen, could never imagine. Sandecker felt as though he’d lost a son, Giordino a brother.
Giordino stopped and stared up at the apartment above the classic autos and aircraft. “I should have been in the DSMV with him.”
Sandecker looked up. “Then you would be missing and maybe dead too.”
“I’ll always regret not being with him,” Giordino said vaguely.
“Dirk died in the sea. It’s the way he’d have wanted it.”
“He might be standing here now if one of Big Ben’s manipulators had been fitted with a scoop instead of cutting tools,” Giordino persisted.
Sandecker gave a weary shake of his head. “Allowing your imagination to run riot won’t bring him back.”
Giordino’s eyes lifted to Pitt’s living quarters. “I keep thinking all I have to do is yell for him, and he’ll come down.”
“The same thought has crossed my mind,” Sandecker admitted.
Suddenly the door of the apartment opened, and they momentarily stiffened, then relaxed as Toshie emerged carrying a tray with cups and a teapot. With incredible supple grace, she delicately wound down the iron circular stairway and glided toward Sandecker and Giordino.
Sandecker wrinkled his brows in puzzlement. “A mystery to me how you sweet-talked Jordan into having her committed into your custody.”
“No mystery.” Giordino grinned. “A trade-off. He made her a present to me in return for keeping my mouth shut about the Kaiten Project.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t encase your feet in cement and throw you in the Potomac.”
“I was bluffing.”
“Ray Jordan is no dummy,” Sandecker said dryly. “He knew that.”
“Okay, so she was a gift for services rendered.”
Toshie set the tray on the running board of the Stutz next to the admiral. “Tea, gentlemen?”
“Yes, thank you,” Sandecker said, rising to his feet.
Toshie smoothly settled to her knees and performed a brief tea ceremony before passing the steaming cups. Then she rose and admiringly stared at the Messerschmitt.
“What a beautiful airplane,” she murmured, overlooking the grime, the flattened tires, and the faded paint.
“I’m going to restore it to its original state,” said Giordino quietly, mentally picturing the dingy aircraft as it looked when new. “As a favor to Dirk.”
“You talk like he’s going to be resurrected,” Sandecker said tightly.
“He’s not dead,” Giordino muttered flatly. Tough though he was, his eyes grew moist.
“May I help?” asked Toshie.
Giordino self-consciously wiped his eyes and looked at her curiously. “I’m sorry, pretty lady, help me what?”
“Repair the airplane.”
Giordino and Sandecker exchanged blank glances. “You’re a mechanic?” asked Giordino.
“I helped my father build and maintain his fishing boat. He was very proud when I mended his ailing engine.
Giordino’s face lit up. “A match made in heaven.” He paused and stared at the drab dress Toshie was given when she was released from Jordan’s custody. “Before you and I start to tear this baby apart, I’m going to take you to the best boutiques in Washington and buy you a new wardrobe.”
