Cyclops (Dirk Pitt 8)

LeBaron wiped newly formed sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. "No use in arguing with me, Dirk, I'm not the one who doesn't believe you. The Russian mentality thinks there is a lie behind every truth."

"You've talked with Jessie. Surely she explained how we happened to find the Cyclops and land on the island."

LeBaron visibly winced at Pitt's mention of the Cyclops. He suddenly seemed to recoil from Pitt. He picked up his canvas bag and pounded on the door. It swung open almost immediately and he was gone.

Foss Gly was waiting when LeBaron entered room six. He sat there, a brooding evil, a human murder machine immune to suffering or death. He smelled of decayed meat.

LeBaron stood trembling and silently handed over the canvas bag. Gly rummaged inside and drew out a small recorder and rewound the tape. He listened for a few seconds to satisfy himself that the voices were distinct.

"Did he confide in you?" asked Gly.

"Yes, he made no attempt to hide anything."

"Is he working for the CIA?"

"I don't believe so. His landing on the island was merely an accident."

Gly came from behind the desk and grabbed the loose skin on the side of LeBaron's waist, squeezing and twisting in the same motion. The publisher's eyes bulged, gasping as the agony pierced his body. He slowly sank to his knees on the concrete.

Gly bent down until he stared with frozen malignancy scant inches from LeBaron's eyes. "Do not screw with me, scum," he said menacingly, "or your sweet wife will be the next one who pays with a mutilated body."

Ira Hagen threw Hudson and Eriksen a curve and bypassed Houston. There was no need for the trip.

The computer on board his jet told him all he needed to know. A trace of the Texas phone number in General Fisher's black book led to the office of the director of NASAs Flight Operations, Irwin Mitchell, alias Irwin Dupuy. A check of another name on the list, Steve Larson, turned up Steve Busche, who was director of NASAs Flight Research Center in California.

Nine little Indians, and then there were four. . .

Hagen's tally of the "inner core" now read:

Raymond LeBaron....Last reported in Cuba.

General Mark Fisher....Colorado Springs.

Clyde Booth....Albuquerque.

Irwin Mitchell....Houston.

Steve Busche....California.

Dean Beagle (?)....Philadelphia. (ID and location not proven)

Daniel Klein (?)....Washington, D.C. (ditto)

Leonard Hudson....Maryland. (location not proven)

Gunnar Eriksen....Maryland. (ditto)

His deadline was only sixty-six hours away. He had kept the President advised of his progress and warned him that his investigation would be cutting it thin. Already, the President was putting together a trusted team to gather up members of the "inner core" and transport them to a location the President had yet to specify. Hagen's ace card was the proximity of the last three names on the list. He was gambling they were all sitting in the same basket.

Hagen altered his routine and did not waste time renting a car when his plane landed at Philadelphia International Airport. His pilot had called ahead, and a Lincoln limousine was waiting when he stepped down the stairway. During the twenty-four-mile drive along the Schuylkill River to Valley Forge State Park, he worked on his report to the President and formulated a plan to speed the discovery of Hudson and Eriksen, whose joint phone number turned out to be a disconnected number in an empty house near Washington.

He closed his briefcase as

the car rolled past the park where George Washington's army had camped during the winter of 1777-78. Many of the trees still bore golden leaves and the rolling hills had yet to turn brown. The driver turned onto a road that wound around a hill overlooking the park and was bordered on both sides by old stone walls.

The historic Horse and Artillery Inn was built in 1790 as a stagecoach stop and tavern for colonial travelers and sat amid sweeping lawns and a grove of shade trees. It was a picturesque three-story building with blue shutters and a stately front porch. The inn was an original example of early limestone farm architecture and bore a plaque designating it as listed on the National Register of Historic Places.