A sly grin crept across Pitts face. 'You've made your point. It would be interesting to see what your scandal sheet has to say about me.'
'I have it right here,' Kippmann said, matching Pitts grin. 'Care to see it?'
'No, thanks. It couldn't tell me anything that I don't already know,' Pitt said flatly. 'I would be interested though in seeing what you have on Kirsti Fyrie.'
Kippmann's expression went blank and he looked as if he had been shot. 'I was hoping you wouldn't get around to her.'
'You have her file also.' It was more statement than question.
'Yes,' Kippmann answered briefly. He saw there was no way out, no argument that would stand. He sighed with uneasiness and handed Pitt rUe number 883-57.
Pitt reached out and took the folder. For ten minutes he examined the contents, leafing very slowly, almost reluctantly from documents to photos, from reports to letters. Then finally, like a man in a dream, he closed the folder and gave it back to Kippmann.
'I can't believe it. It's ridiculous. I won't believe it.'
'I'm afraid what you read is true, all of it.' Kippmann's voice was quiet, even.
Pitt pulled the back of his hand across his eyes.
'Never, never in a thousand years would I have His voice faded away.
'It threw us out of gear too. Our first hint came when we could find no trace of her on New Guinea.'
'I know. I'd already pegged her for a phony on that score.'
'You knew? But how?'
'When we had dinner together in Reykjavik, I described a recipe that called for shark meat wrapped in a seaweed known as echidna. Miss Fyrie accepted it.
Rather strange behavior from a missionary who spent years in the jungles of New Guinea, don't you think?'
'How the hell should I know.' Kippmann shrugged. 'I don't have the vaguest notion as to what an echidna is.'
'An echidna,' Pitt said, 'is an egg-laying spiny anteater. A mammal very common to the landscape of New Guinea.'
'I can't say I blame her for missing the catch.'
'How would you react if I said I was going to barbecue a New York cut steak wrapped in porcupine quills?'
'I'd say something.'
'You've got the idea.'
Kippmann stared at Pitt with an admiring look.
'What put you on to her in the first place? You wouldn't have tricked her without a nudge, without a suspicious hint.'
'Her tan,' Pitt answered. 'It was shallow-not burned deep like one acquired after years and months spent in a tropic jungle.'
'You, sir, are very observant,' Kippmann murmured thoughtfully. 'But why… why bother to trip up someone you barely knew?'
'Partly for the same reason I'm standing here in this ridiculous wolf suit,' Pitt said grimly. 'I volunteered for your little manhunt for two reasons. One, I've got a score to even with Rondheim and Kelly, no more, no less.
Second, I'm still Special Projects Director for NUMA, and as such, my primary duty is to obtain the plans for Fyrie's undersea mineral probe. That's why I conned Kirsti-she knows where the blueprints are hidden. Boy something I shouldn't have, it gave me a wedge, to her.'
Kippmann nodded. 'Now I understand.' He sat on a desk and toyed with a letter opener.
I have Kelly and his group in custody, I'll r to you and Admiral Sandecker for quesgood enough,' Pitt snapped. 'If you want my cooperation as an identifying witness, then promise me a few minutes alone with Rondheim-And full and complete custody of Kirsti Fyrie.'
'Impossible!'
'What does Rondheim's future physical condition mean to you?'
'If I turned my back so you could kick him in the teeth, I couldn't let you have Kirsti Fyrie.'
'You could,' Pitt said positively. 'Mostly because she isn't yours to give. If you're lucky, you might pin an accomplice charge on her. But that might strain our relations with Iceland, in event that wouldn't make our State Department exactly jump for joy.'
'You're wasting your breath,' Kippmann said impatiently. 'She will be convicted of murder along with all the rest.'
'Yours is not to convict, yours is to apprehend and arrest.' Kippmann shook his head. 'You don't understand-' He broke off as the door opened wide. Lazard stood framed in the doorway, his face ashen.
Kippmann stared at him curiously. 'Dan, what is it?' Lazard wiped his brow and slumped into an empty chair. 'De Croix and Castile have suddenly changed their planned excursion. They've shaken their escort and disappeared somewhere in the park. God only knows what can happen before we find them.'
Frowning, baffled, Kippmann's face expressed a moment of utter uncomprehension. 'Christ!' he exploded. 'How could it happen? How could you lose them with half the federal agents in the state guarding their party?'
'There are twenty thousand people out there in the park right this minute,' Lazard tone. 'It doesn't take any great magician to replace two of them. feat of cleverness to Croix and Castile bitched. He shrugged helplessly. 'Deal about our heavy security precautions from the second they stepped through the main gate. They went to the john together and gave us the slip by ducking out a side window, just like a pair of kids.'
Pitt stood up. 'Quickly, do you have their tour and scheduled stops?'
Lazard stared at him for a moment. 'Yes, here, each amusement and exhibit and their time schedules.' He handed Pitt a Xeroxed sheet of paper.
Pitt rapidly glanced at the schedule. Then a slow grin cut his face as he turned to Kippmann. 'You'd better send me into the game, coach.'y 'Major,' Kippmann said unhappily. 'I have the feeling I'm about to be blackmailed.
'As they say during campus riots, why won't you meet our demands?'
The slump of Kippmann's shoulders displayed as sure a sign of defeat as if he'd waved a white flag. He stared at Pitt. The eyes that stared back were disconcertingly steady.
Kippmann nodded. 'Rondheim and Miss Fyrie are yours- They're staying in the Disneyland Hotel across the street. Adjoining rooms, 605 and 607.'
'And Kelly, Marks, Von Hummel and the rest?'
'They're all there- Hermit Limited reserved the entire sixth floor.' Kippmann rubbed his face uncomfortably. 'Just what do you have in mind?'
'Rest easy. Five minutes with Rondheim. Then You can have him. Kirsti Fyrie I keep. Call her a little bonus from the N.I.A. too. Kippmann gave up completely. 'You win. Now where are De Croix and Castile?'
'The obvious.' Pitt smiled at Kippmann and Lazard.
The most obvious place where any two men who passed their childhood near the Spanish Main would head.'
'God, you've hit it,' Lazard said almost bitterly.
'The last stop on the schedule-The Pirates of the Caribbean.'
Next to the cleverly engineered apparitions in the Disneyland Haunted House, The Pirates of the Caribbean is the most popular attraction in the world-famous park. Constructed on two underground levels that occupy nearly two acres'. the quarter-of-a-mile boat ride carries awed passengers through a maze of tunnels and vast rooms decorated as roving pirate ships and pillaged seaside towns, manned by almost a hundred lifelike figures that not only match the best of Madame Tussaud's, but who also sing, dance and loot.
Pitt was the last one up the entrance ramp to the landing where the attendants assist the paying customers into the boats at the start of the fifteen-minute excursion. The fifty or sixty people waiting in line waved to Pitt and made smiling remarks about his costume as he made his way behind Kippmann and Lazard. He waved back, wondering what the expressions on their faces would be if he were to suddenly whip off his wolf's mask and display his bandaged face. He could see at least ten small children who would never again want the Three Little Pigs read
