Cyclops (Dirk Pitt 8)

Hagen put the legal pad back in the briefcase and took out a can of diet cola and a thick salami sandwich with sliced dill pickle, wrapped in wax paper with a delicatessen's advertising printed on both sides. The Colorado temperature had cooled considerably once the sun had dropped over the Rocky Mountains. The shadow of Pike's Peak stretched out over the plains, casting a dark veil over the treeless landscape.

Hagen didn't notice the scenic beauty unfolding through the windshield. What disturbed him was that he did not have a firm grip on any member of the "inner core." Three of the names on his list remained hidden, God only knew where, and the fourth was still innocent until proven guilty. No hard facts, only a phone number and a gut instinct that Fisher was part of the Jersey Colony conspiracy. He had to be absolutely certain, and most important, he desperately needed to pick up a thread to the next man.

Hagen stopped his mental wanderings, his eyes focused on the rearview mirror. A man in a blue officer's uniform was passing through the side entrance, the door held open by a five-stripe sergeant, or whatever specialist rating the Air Force gave its enlisted men these days. The officer was tall, athletically built, wore four stars on his shoulders, and was quite handsome in a Gregory Peck way. The sergeant accompanied him across a sidewalk to a waiting Air Force blue sedan and smartly opened the rear door.

Something about the scene snapped a string in Hagen's mind. He sat up straight and turned around to stare boldly out the side window. Fisher was in the act of bending over to enter the backseat of his car, holding a briefcase. That was it. The briefcase wasn't held by the handle as it would normally be carried.

Fisher was clutching it like a football, under his arm and against the side of his chest.

Hagen had no qualms against changing his carefully laid out plan in midstream. He improvised on the spot, quickly forgetting about searching Fisher's command office. If his sudden creative spark didn't pan out, he could always go back. He started the engine and moved off across the parking lot behind the general's car.

Fisher's driver pulled across the intersection and turned onto Highway 94 under a yellow light. Hagen hung back until the traffic thinned. Then he ran the red light and accelerated until he was close enough behind the Air Force blue car to make out the driver's face in its rearview mirror. He held that position, watching to see if there was any eye contact. There was none. The sergeant was not a suspicious sort and never checked his tail. Hagen rightly assumed the man had no training in defensive driving tactics against possible terrorist attack.

After a slight bend in the highway the lights of a shopping center came into view. Hagen glanced at his speedometer. The sergeant was cruising along five miles an hour below the posted speed limit. Hagen pulled into the outer lane and passed. He speeded up slightly and then slowed down to turn into the driveway of the shopping center, gambling that one of the stores sold liquor, gambling that General Fisher hadn't forgotten his wife's instructions to buy the bottle of sherry.

The Air Force car drove on past.

"Damn!" Hagen muttered to himself. It struck him that any serviceman would have purchased liquor at his base post exchange, where it was sold for much less than at a retail store.

Hagen was stalled for a few seconds behind a woman trying to back out of a parking slot. When he finally broke free, he burned rubber swinging from the driveway onto the road. Luckily, Fisher's driver had caught a red light at the next intersection and Hagen was able to catch and pass him again.

He pressed the accelerator to the floor, trying to put as much distance as he could between them. In two miles he turned into the narrow road leading to the main gate of Peterson Air Force Base. He showed his security clearance to the Air Policeman standing stiffly, wearing a white helmet, matching silk scarf at the neck, and a black leather side holster that contained a pearl-handled revolver.

"Where can I find the PX?" Hagen asked.

The AP pointed up the road. "Straight ahead to the second stop sign. Then left toward the water tower. A large gray building. You can't miss it."

Hagen thanked him and moved away just as Fisher's car pulled up behind and was smartly waved on through the gate. Taking his time, he stayed within the base speed limit and eased into the post exchange parking area only fifty feet ahead of Fisher. He stopped between a jeep Wagoneer and a Dodge pickup truck with a camper that effectively hid most of his car from view. He slipped from behind the wheel, turning off the lights but keeping the engine running.

The general's car had stopped, and Hagen unhurriedly approached it in a direct line, wondering if Fisher would get out and buy the sherry or send the sergeant to run the errand.

Hagen smiled to himself. He should have known it was a preordained conclusion. The general, of course, sent the sergeant.

Hagen reached the car at nearly the same moment as the sergeant walked through the door into the PX. One quick scan to see if some bored soul waiting in a parked car might be idly staring in his direction or a shopper from the PX pushing a grocery cart close by. The old cliché "The coast is clear" ran through his mind.

Without the slightest hesitation or wasted movement, Hagen slipped a weighted rubber sap from a specially sewn pocket under one arm of his windbreaker, jerked open the rear car door, and swung his arm in a short arc. No words of greeting, no trivial conversation. The sap caught Fisher precisely on the point of his jaw.

Hagen snatched the briefcase from the general's lap, slammed the door, and walked casually back to his car. From start to finish the action had taken no more than four seconds.

As he drove away from the PX toward the main gate he ticked off the timing sequence in his mind.

Fisher would be unconscious for twenty minutes, maybe an hour. Give the sergeant four to six minutes to find the shelf with the sherry, pay for it, and return to the car. Another five minutes before an alert was sounded, providing the sergeant even noticed the general had been mugged in the backseat.

Hagen felt pleased with himself. He would be through the main gate and halfway to the Colorado Springs airport before the Air Police realized what had happened.

An early snow started to fall over southern Colorado shortly after midnight. At first it melted when it met the ground, but soon an icy sheet formed, and then a white blanket began to build. Farther east the winds kicked up, and the Colorado Highway Patrol closed off the smaller county roads due to blizzard conditions.

Inside a small, unmarked Lear jet parked at the far end of the airport terminal, Hagen sat at a desk and studied the contents of General Fisher's briefcase. Most of it was highly classified material concerning day-to-day operations of the space center. One file of papers concerned the flight of the space shuttle Gettysburg, which had been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California only two days before. He was amused to find amid the slots of the briefcase a pornographic magazine. But the champion prize was a black leather book that contained a total of thirty-nine names and phone numbers.

No addresses or notations, only names and numbers segregated in three sections. The first section gave fourteen; the second, seventeen; and the third, eight.

None of them struck a chord with Hagen. It was possible they were simply friends and associates of Fisher's. He stared at the third list, the printing beginning to blur before his eyes from weariness.

Abruptly the top name leaped out at him. Not the surname, but the first name.

Startled, shocked that he had missed something so simple, a code so obvious that no one would consider it, he copied the list on his legal pad and matched up three of the names by adding the correct ones.

Gunnar Monroe/Eriksen