Cyclops (Dirk Pitt 8)

"Like why did you hijack me to Cuba?"

"You have a strange sense of timing."

"I don't usually conduct foreplay in a drainpipe either."

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"And if I don't tell you?"

He laughed. "We shake hands and part company."

For a few seconds she lay against the side of the pipe, considering how far she would get without him.

Probably no farther than the next town, the first suspicious policeman or security guard. Pitt seemed an incredibly resourceful man. He had proven that several times over. There was no avoiding the hard fact that she needed him more than he needed her.

She tried to find the right words to explain, an introduction that made some kind of sense. Finally she gave up and blurted it out. "The President sent me to meet with Fidel Castro."

His deep green eyes examined her with honest curiosity. "That's a good start. I'd like to hear the rest."

Jessie took a deep breath and continued.

She revealed Fidel Castro's genuine offer of a pact and his bizarre manner of sending it past the watchful eyes of Soviet intelligence.

She told of her secret meeting with the President after the unexpected return of the Prosperteer and his request for her to convey his reply by retracing her husband's flight in the blimp, a guise Castro would have recognized.

She admitted the deception in recruiting Pitt, Giordino, and Gunn, and she asked Pitt's forgiveness for a plan gone wrong by the surprise attack from the Cuban helicopter.

And last, she described General Velikov's narrowing suspicion of the true purpose behind the botched attempt to reach Castro and his demand for answers through Foss Gly's torture methods.

Pitt listened to the whole story without comment.

His response was the part she dreaded. She feared what he would say or do now that he had discovered how he had been used, lied to, and misled, battered bloody and nearly killed on several occasions for a mission he knew nothing about. She felt he had every right to strangle her.

She could think of nothing further to say except "I'm sorry."

Pitt did not strangle her. He held out his hand. She grasped it, and he pulled her toward him. "So you conned me all up and down the line," he said.

God, those green eyes, she thought. She wanted to dive into them. "I can't blame you for being angry."

He embraced her for several moments silently.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Aren't you going to say something?" she asked timidly. "Aren't you even mad?"

He unbuttoned the shirt of the uniform and lightly touched her breasts. "Lucky for you I'm not one to harbor a grudge."

Then they made love as the traffic rumbled over the highway above.

Jessie felt incredibly calm. The warm feeling had stayed with her for the last hour as they walked openly along the road's shoulder. It spread like an anesthetic, deadening her fear and sharpening her confidence. Pitt had accepted her story and agreed to help her reach Castro. And now she walked along beside him as he led her through the backcountry of Cuba as though he owned it, feeling secure and warm in the afterglow of their intimacy.

Pitt scrounged some mangoes, a pineapple, and two half-ripened tomatoes. They ate as they walked.

Several vehicles, mostly trucks loaded with sugarcane and cirtrus fruits, passed them. Once in a while a military transport carrying militia swept by. Jessie would tense and look down at her tightly laced boots nervously while Pitt lifted his rifle in the air and shouted "Saludos amigos!"