Cyclops (Dirk Pitt 8)

He came through a side door, walked up to a reception desk, and held up the flowers. "I have a delivery for Mrs. Hilda Kronberg."

The receptionist gave him a direct gaze and smiled. Pitt found her quite attractive, dark red hair, long and gleaming, gray-blue eyes set in a narrow face.

"Just leave them on the counter," she said sweetly. "I'll have an attendant give them to her."

"I have to deliver them personally," Pitt said. "They come with a verbal message."

She nodded and pointed to a side door. "You'll probably find Mrs. Kronberg out by the pool. Don't expect her to be lucid, she drifts in and out of reality."

Pitt thanked her and felt remiss for not making a try for a dinner date. He walked through the door and down a ramp. The glassed-in pool was designed like a Hawaiian garden with black lava rock and a waterfall.

After asking two elderly women for Hilda Kronberg, he found her sitting in a wheelchair, her eyes staring into the water, her mind elsewhere.

"Mrs. Kronberg?"

She shaded her eyes with one hand and looked up. "Yes?"

"My dame is Dirk Pitt, and I wonder if I might ask you a few questions?"

"Mr. Pitt, is it?" she asked in a soft voice. She studied his uniform and the flowers. "Why would a florist's delivery boy want to ask me questions?"

Pitt smiled at her use of "boy" and handed her the flowers. "It concerns your late husband, Hans."

"Are you with him?" she asked suspiciously.

"No, I'm quite alone."

Hilda was sickly thin and her skin was as transparent as tissue paper. Her face was heavily made up and her hair skillfully dyed. Her diamond rings would have bought a small fleet of Rolls-Royces. Pitt guessed her age was a good fifteen years younger than the seventy-five she appeared. Hilda Kronberg was a woman waiting to die. Yet when she smiled at the mention of her husband's name, her eyes seemed to smile too.

"You look too young to have known Hans," she said.

"Mr. Conde of Weehawken Marine told me about him."

"Bob Conde, of course. He and Hans were old poker pals."

"You never remarried after his death?"

"Yes, I remarried."

"Yet you still use his name?"

"A long story that wouldn't interest you."

"When was the last time you saw Hans?"

"It was a Thursday. I saw him off on the steamship Monterey, bound for Havana, on December 10, 1958. Hans was always chasing rainbows. He and his partner were off on another treasure hunt. He swore they would find enough gold to buy me the dream house I always wanted. Sadly, he never came back."

"Do you recall who his partner was?"

Her gentle features suddenly turned hard. "What are you after, Mr. Pitt? Who do you represent?"

"I'm a special projects director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency," he replied. "During a survey on a sunken ship called the Cyclops, I discovered what I believe to be the remains of your husband."

"You found Hans?" she asked, surprised.

"I didn't make positive identification, but the diver's helmet on the body was traced to him."

"Hans was a good man," she said wistfully. "Not a good provider, perhaps, but we had a good life together until. . . well, until he died."