Raise the Titanic - Cussler Clive - Страница 20

    She nodded. "The third and last. Jake must have stocked up on picture postcards of Paris. This one shows the Sainte-Chapelle, but it was mailed from Aberdeen, Scotland, on April 4, 1912."

    DearAd, This is a frightful place. The cold is fearsome. We don't know if we will survive. If I can somehow get this to you, you will be taken care of. God Bless. Jake.

    Along the side, another hand had written in:

    Dear Mrs. Hobart. We lost Jake in a storm. We gave him a Christian readin. We're sorry. V.H.

    Seagram took out the list of the crew's names that Donner had read him over the phone.

    "V.H. must have been Vernon Hall," he said.

    "Yes, Vern and Jake were good friends."

    "What happened after that? Who swore you to secrecy?"

    "About two months later, I think it was early in June, a Colonel Patman or Patmore-I can't remember which came to the house in Boulder and told me it was imperative that I never reveal any contact from Jake after the Little Angel mine affair."

    "Did he give any reason?"

    She shook her head. "No, he simply said it was in the interest of the government to remain silent, and then he handed me the check for ten thousand dollars and departed."

    Seagram sagged in his chair as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It didn't seem possible that this little ninety-three-year-old woman should have the key to a lost billion-dollar ore cache, but she did.

    Seagram looked at her and smiled. "That offer of lunch is beginning to sound awfully good about now."

    She grinned back and he could see the mischief in her eyes. "As Jake would have said, to hell with lunch. Let's have a beer first."

16

    The crimson rays of the sunset were still lingering on the western horizon when the first rumble of distant thunder signaled the approach of a lightning storm. The air was warm and the gentle offshore breeze felt good on Seagram's face as he sat on the terrace of the Balboa Bay Club and sipped his after-dinner cognac.

    It was eight o'clock, the hour when the fashionable residents of Newport Beach began their evening socializing. Seagram had taken a dip in the club pool and then eaten early. He sat there listening to the grumbling of the nearing storm. The air became thick and charged with electricity, but there was no sign of rain or wind. In the photographic flash of the lightning he could see pleasure boats cruising up the bay, showing red and green navigation lights, their white paint giving them the appearance of silent gliding ghosts. Lightning stabbed the night air again, a jagged fork splitting the clouded sky. He watched it strike somewhere behind the Balboa Island rooftops, and in almost the same instant, the roar of the thunder thrust against his eardrums like a cannon barrage.

    Everyone else had nervously moved inside the dining room, and Seagram soon found the terrace deserted. He stayed, enjoying mother nature's display of fireworks. He finished off the cognac and leaned back in his chair, watching for the next flash of lightning. It soon came and illuminated a figure standing beside his table. In that instant of light, he made out a tall man with black hair and rugged features staring down at him through cool, piercing eyes. Then the stranger blended into the darkness again.

    As the thunder rumbled away, a seemingly disembodied voice asked, "Are you Gene Seagram?"

    Seagram hesitated, waiting for his eyes to readjust themselves to the dark that followed the flash. "I am."

    "I believe you've been looking for me."

    "At the moment, you have the advantage."

    "My apologies. I'm Dirk Pitt."

    The skies lit up again and Seagram was relieved to see a smiling face. "It would seem, Mr. Pitt, that dramatic entrances are a habit with you. Did you also conjure up this electrical storm?"

    Pitt's answering laugh came to the accompaniment of a clap of thunder.

    "I haven't mastered that feat yet, but I am making progress at parting the Red Sea."

    Seagram gestured to an empty chair. "Won't you sit down?"

    "Thank you."

    "I'd offer you a drink, but my waiter apparently has a fear of lightning."

    "The worst of it is passing," Pitt said, looking skyward. The voice was quiet and controlled.

    "How did you find me?" Seagram asked.

    "A step-by-step process," Pitt replied. "I called your wife in Washington, and she said you were on a business trip to Leisure World. Since it's only a few miles from here, I checked with the guard at the gate. He told me he had admitted a Gene Seagram who was okayed for entry by a Mrs Bertram Austin.. She in turn mentioned she had recommended the Balboa Bay Club when you stated a desire to postpone your flight back to Washington and lay over until tomorrow. The rest was easy."

    "I should feel flattered by your persistent style."

    Pitt nodded. "All very elementary."

    "A fortunate circumstance that we happened to be in the same neck of the woods," Seagram said.

    "I always like to take a few days off and go surfing about this time of year. My parents have a house just across the hay. I could have contacted you sooner, but Admiral Sandecker said there was no hurry."

    "You know the Admiral?"

    "I work for him."

    "Then you're with NUMA?"

    "Yes, I'm the agency's special projects director."

    "I thought your name sounded vaguely familiar. My wife has mentioned you."

    "Dana?".

    "Yes, have you worked with her?"

    "Only once. I flew in supplies to Pitcairn Island last summer when she and her NUMA archaeological team were diving for artifacts from the Bounty. "

    Seagram looked at him. "So Admiral Sandecker told you there was no hurry to contact me."

    Pitt smiled. "From what I gather, you rubbed him wrong with a middle-of-the-night phone call."

    The black clouds had rolled seaward and the lightning was stabbing at Catalina across the channel.

    "Now that you have me in your sights," Pitt said, "what can I do for you?"

    "You can begin by telling me about Novaya Zemlya."

    "Not much to tell," Pitt said casually. "I was in charge of the expedition to pick up your man. When he didn't show on schedule, I borrowed the ship's helicopter and made a reconnaissance flight toward the Russian island."

    "You took a chance. Soviet radar might have picked you up on their scopes."

    "I took that possibility into consideration. I stayed within ten feet of the water and kept my air speed down to fifteen knots. Even if I had been spotted, my radar blip would have read as a small fishing boat."

    "What happened after you reached the island?"

    "I cruised the shoreline until I found Koplin's sloop moored in a cove. I set the copter down on the beach nearby and began searching for him. It was then I heard shots through a wall of swirling snow that had been kicked up by a gust of wind."

    "How was it possible to run onto Koplin and the Russian patrol guard? Finding them in the middle of a snowstorm is akin to stumbling on a needle in a frozen haystack."

    "Needles don't bark," Pitt answered. "I followed the sound of a dog on the hunt. It led me to Koplin and the guard."

    "The latter, of course, you murdered," Seagram said.