Valhalla Rising (34 page)

Hacken began by asking Pitt to talk about himself briefly, explain his job at NUMA and tell how he came to bring his old aircraft to the Disabled Children’s Air Show benefit. The other detectives asked an occasional question but mostly took notes, as Pitt described the flight from the moment he’d taken off with the disabled children from Gene Taylor Field until he’d landed on the Sheep Meadow in Central Park.

One of the detectives looked at Pitt and said, “I’m a pilot myself, and I hope you realize you could go to jail for your antics, not to mention losing your pilot’s license.”

Pitt gazed at the detective with a faint trace of a confident grin. “If saving the lives of fifteen disabled children makes me a criminal, so be it.”

“You still might have accomplished that by not turning off the river and into the city streets.”

“If I had not turned onto Wall Street when I did, we would have surely been shot down and crashed in the river. Trust me when I say there would have been no survivors.”

“But you must admit, you took a terrible chance.”

Pitt shrugged indifferently. “Obviously, I wouldn’t be sitting here if I hadn’t taken the gamble.”

“Do you have any idea why the other pilot would risk a million-dollar aircraft, load it with antique operational weapons and attack an old plane full of disabled kids?” asked Hacken.

“I only wish I knew,” said Pitt, sneaking past the question.

“So do I,” said Hacken sarcastically.

“Do you have any idea who the pilot was?” Pitt asked in return.

“Not a clue. He melted into the crowd and escaped.”

“The aircraft has to have a registration number that would lead to the owner.”

“Our experts haven’t had a chance to examine the plane yet.”

“Surely the air show officials have his entry papers,” said Pitt. “We all had to fill them out for insurance purposes. They should tell you something.”

“We’re working with New Jersey law enforcement from that end. All they can tell us until they are further into the investigation was that an aircraft collector called and said an identical plane was hangared at a small field near Pittsburgh. He claimed the owner was one Raul St. Justin.”

“Sounds phony,” offered Pitt.

“We agree,” said Hacken. “Did you know St. Justin, or whatever his true name is?”

“No.” Pitt stared steadily into Hacken’s eyes. “We talked briefly before I took off.”

“What did you talk about?”

“His triplane. I’ve always been fascinated by antique aircraft. Nothing more.”

“Then you had never met him previously.”

“No.”

“Can you give a description and assist our crime artist in making a likeness of his face?”

“I’ll be happy to cooperate.”

“We’re sorry to have put you and Miss Egan through this, but with the death of Mary Conrow, we’re looking at a murder investigation as well as charges of endangering public lives. It was a miracle no one was killed when the red airplane strafed you in the city streets and our police helicopter was shot down near a busy intersection.”

“We can all be thankful for that,” said Pitt sincerely.

“I think that will be all for now,” said Hacken. “You and Miss Egan will, of course, have to remain in the city until our investigation is concluded.”

“I’m afraid that is impossible, Inspector.”

Hacken’s eyebrows rose. He wasn’t used to having a witness in a prominent case tell him he was leaving town. “May I hear why?”

“Because I’m a part of the ongoing government investigation into the fire on board the cruise ship
Emerald Dolphin,
as well as the hijacking of a NUMA survey ship. My presence is required in Washington.” Pitt paused for effect. “Naturally, you’ll want to clear this with my superior, Admiral Sandecker of the National Underwater and Marine Agency.” He pulled out his wallet and handed Hacken his NUMA card. “Here is his phone number.”

Hacken silently passed the card to one of his detectives, who left the room.

“Are you through with me? I’d like to take Miss Egan home.”

Hacken nodded and gestured toward the door. “Please wait outside until we confirm your connection with the government and the investigation.”

Pitt found Kelly sitting curled up on a wooden bench. She looked like a pathetic little girl left on the steps of an orphanage. “Are you all right?”

“I can’t get over Mary’s death,” she said sadly. “She was a close friend of my father’s for many years.”

Pitt’s eyes strayed across the busy precinct office to see if anyone was listening to their conversation. Satisfied that no one was within earshot, he asked, “Just how close
was
Mary to your father?”

She looked at him angrily. “They were lovers over the years, if that’s what you want to hear.”

“That’s not what I want to hear,” Pitt said softly. “How knowledgeable was she about your father’s projects?”

“She was no stranger to them. Because I had my own career and was away most of the time, she acted as his close confidante, secretary, maid and housekeeper when she wasn’t flying with the airlines.”

“Did he ever talk to you about his work?”

She shook her head. “Dad was a very secretive man. He always said that explaining his work to anyone other than a scientist or engineer would be impossible. The only time he lectured me on his work was on board the
Emerald Dolphin.
He was quite proud of his engineering concepts for the ship’s engines, and he explained their magnetohydrodynamics principle to me over dinner one night.”

“That’s all he ever told you?”

“After a few martinis in the lounge, he did say that he had created the breakthrough of the ages.” Kelly shrugged wistfully. “I thought it was the gin talking.”

“Then Mary was the only person aware of his activities.”

“No.” She looked up as if seeing someone. “Josh Thomas.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Josh Thomas was my father’s friend and sometimes his assistant. They went to MIT together and received their doctorates, Dad in engineering and Josh in chemistry.”

“Do you know where you can get in touch with him?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Where is your father’s laboratory?” Pitt asked.

“At his home not far from Gene Taylor Field.”

“Can you call Dr. Thomas? I would like to meet him.”

“Any particular reason?”

“You might say I’m dying to find out what the breakthrough of the ages is all about.”

A
dmiral Sandecker stood at a podium and fielded questions thrown at him by the news media. If there was one thing the admiral was not, it was a media narcissist. Though he always had good relations with press and TV reporters and often enjoyed their company on a one-to-one basis, he simply was not at home in the spotlight, nor was he comfortable evading or dancing around probing inquiries. There were times when Sandecker was simply too honest and outspoken for bureaucratic Washington.

After forty minutes of hard questions about NUMA’s role in the investigation of the tragic loss of the
Emerald Dolphin,
Sandecker was thankful that the news conference was winding down.

“Can you tell us what your people found inside the wreck during their probe with the submersible?” asked a nationally recognized female TV reporter.

“We believe we have found evidence suggesting that the fire was deliberately caused,” replied Sandecker.

“Can you describe the evidence?”

“What looks like an incendiary material was found in the area where the ship’s crew reported the fire started.”

“Have you identified this substance?” asked a reporter from the
Washington Post.

“It’s over at the FBI lab as we speak,” Sandecker hedged. “They should have results shortly.”

“What can you tell us about the terrorist hijacking of your survey vessel, the
Deep Encounter?
” This from a reporter with CNN.

“Not much that you already don’t know from previous reports. I wish I could tell you why criminal elements hijacked a NUMA ship, but unfortunately none of the pirates responsible lived to tell the tale.”

A woman in a blue suit from ABC News raised her hand. “How did your NUMA crew manage to destroy the pirate ship and everyone on board?”

The question had to come, and Sandecker had prepared himself for it. As much as he hated to, he lied to protect the NUMA scientists and ships’ crew from being labeled killers. “As near as we can tell, one of the hijackers guarding the entrance to the lagoon fired a missile in the dark at the
Deep Encounter.
He missed and the missile struck the pirate ship.”

“What happened to the guard?” the woman persisted. “Didn’t he live to be arrested?”

“No, he accidentally died during a struggle with my special projects director, who was attempting to stop him from firing a second missile at our survey ship.”

A reporter from the
Los Angeles Times
caught Sandecker’s attention. “Do you know what possible connection there might be between the two incidents?”

Sandecker threw up his hands and shrugged. “It’s a mystery to me. You’ll probably have better luck finding answers from the FBI and CIA during their ongoing investigation.”

The
L.A. Times
reporter motioned for one more question, and Sandecker nodded.

“Would that be the same NUMA special projects director who was in on the rescue of the twenty-five hundred people on the
Emerald Dolphin,
who saved your survey vessel from being destroyed, and who saved the lives of those disabled children in New York yesterday during the dogfight?”

“Yes,” Sandecker said proudly. “His name, as you already know, is Dirk Pitt.”

The woman in the back of the room shouted the next question. “Do you think there is a connection—”

“No, I do not.” Sandecker cut her off. “And please don’t ask me any more questions on that subject because I haven’t talked to Mr. Pitt since the incident, and I only know what I read in your newspapers and see on your television news programs.” He paused, stepped back from the podium and raised his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, that’s all I know. Thank you for your courtesy.”

Hiram Yaeger was waiting in Sandecker’s outer office when the admiral returned. Dr. Egan’s old leather case was sitting on the floor beside his chair. He had a fondness for the old case and had begun using it to take his workload home because it was larger and more square than the common briefcase. He rose and followed Sandecker through the door.

“What have you got for me?” asked Sandecker, sitting at his desk.

“I thought you might like an update on the CIA’s dive project on the hijackers’ ship,” he said, opening the case and removing a file folder.

Sandecker stared at Yaeger over a pair of reading glasses, his eyebrows arched. “Where did you get your information? The CIA has given out nothing yet. I know for a fact they’ve only been diving on the wreck”—he paused to glance at his watch—“for the past ten hours.”

“The project manager insists on running a constant data program every hour. You might say that we’ll know what they’ve discovered almost as soon as they will.”

“If they find out Max is hacking secret CIA files, we’ll catch twenty different kinds of hell.”

Yaeger grinned deviously. “Believe me, Admiral, they’ll never know. Max is gaining the data from the salvage ship’s computer before it’s cryptogrammed and sent on for analysis at their headquarters at Langley.”

Now it was Sandecker’s turn to grin deviously. “So tell me what Max found.”

Yaeger opened the file folder and began reading. “The hijackers’ boat was identified as a one-hundred-thirty-five-foot crew/utility work boat built by the Hogan and Lashere Boat Yard of San Diego, California. She was designed to service the offshore oil industry in Indonesia. She was considered to have great flexibility and speed.”

“Did they establish who owned her?” asked Sandecker.

“She was last registered to Barak Oil Company, a subsidiary of Colexico.”

“Colexico,” Sandecker echoed. “I thought they ceased to exist after they were bought out and shut down.”

“A situation that didn’t go down well with the Indonesian government when their main source of oil income disappeared.”

“Who acquired Colexico?”

Yaeger gazed at him and smiled. “Colexico was taken over and disbanded by the Cerberus Corporation.”

Sandecker leaned back in his chair, a smug expression on his face. “I’d like to see Charlie Davis’s face when he hears this.”

“There won’t be a direct tie-in,” said Yaeger. “Ownership of the boat was never transferred. A check through our own library finds no trace of the boat from 1999 to the present. And it’s extremely unlikely the hijackers kept any evidence leading to Cerberus on the boat.”

“Have the CIA salvage people identified any of the hijackers yet?”

“There’s not much left of the bodies to ID, and the guard at the lagoon entrance went out to sea with the tide. As Dirk suspected, dental records and fingerprints will probably find that those guys were former Special Forces warriors who took discharge and went to work as mercenaries.”

“A common occurrence with the military these days.”