Night Probe! (Dirk Pitt 6)

"How will it happen?"

"The automatic pilot. Once it's engaged the plane will begin a very gradual climb. The altimeters have been set to register no higher than 11,000 feet. The pressurization system and the emergency oxygen will not come on. By the time the pilot realizes something is wrong, it will be too late."

"Can't he disengage the autopilot?"

Finn shook his head. "The circuitry has been reset. He could beat the unit with an ax, but it would do no good. It is impossible for him to regain control of the aircraft."

"So they lose consciousness from loss of oxygen."

"And eventually come down in the ocean when they run out of fuel."

"They could crash on land."

"A calculated gamble," Finn explained. "Figuring the plane's range on full fuel tanks, and assuming Gly intends to fly as far away as possible before landing, it's eight to one they hit water."

Sarveux looked pensive for a moment. "The press releases?" he asked. "Written and waiting to be handed to the wire services."

Commissioner Finn raised an umbrella and they began walking to the Prime Minister's limousine.

Puddles were forming in the low spots of the taxi strip. One of Finn's men turned off the lights to the hangar and runway.

At the car Sarveux paused and looked up into the ebony sky as the last hum of the jet engines melted into the rain.

"Too bad Gly will never know how he was outsmarted. I think he would have appreciated that."

The next morning, the following story ran on the international wire services.

OTTAWA, 6110 (Special)- A plane carrying Danielle Sarveux and Henri Villon crashed in the Atlantic Ocean this morning

200 miles northeast of Cayenne, French Guiana.

The wife of Canada's Prime Minister and the presidential candidate for newly independent Quebec took off from Ottawa for a flight to Quebec City last night, and when they failed to make their scheduled landing the alert was given.

Villon was piloting his own plane and Madame Sarveux was the only passenger on board. All radio contact went unanswered.

Because Canadian air controllers did not immediately suspect the twin jet Albatross had flown into the United States, hours were lost on a fruitless search between Quebec and Ottawa. Not until an Air France Concorde reported an aircraft flying erratically south of Bermuda at 55,000 feet, 8000 feet above the maximum altitude for which Villon's Albatross was certified, did anyone begin to make a connection.

U.S. Navy jets were scrambled from the carrier Kitty Hawk near Cuba. Lieutenant Arthur Hancock was the first to spot the Albatross and reported seeing a man motionless at the controls. He followed until the plane went into a slow spiral dive and plunged into the ocean.

"We have no firm grasp on the cause," Ian Stone, a spokesman for Canadian Air Authority, said. "The only theory that makes any sort of sense is that Madame Sarveux and Mr. Villon became unconscious from lack of oxygen and that the plane, on autopilot, had flown itself over 3000 miles off course before running out of fuel and crashing." A search revealed no sign of wreckage.

Prime Minister Charles Sarveux remained in seclusion during the ordeal and had no comment.

An early morning mist quilted the Hudson Valley, cutting visibility to fifty yards. On the opposite side of the hill from the covered entrance of the quarry, Pitt had set up a command post in a motor home borrowed from a nearby fruit farmer. Ironically, neither he nor Shaw was aware of the other's exact location, although they were separated by only a mile of heavily forested hillside.

Pitt felt groggy from too much coffee and too little sleep. He longed for a healthy slug of brandy to clear the cobwebs, but he knew that would be a mistake. As inviting as it sounded, he was afraid it would cause a reverse reaction and slow his thinking, and that was the last thing he needed now.

He stood in the doorway of the motor home and watched Nicholas Riley and the diving team from the De Soto unload their gear while Glen Chase and Al Giordino hovered over a heavy iron grating that was embedded in a rock-walled side of the hill. There was a popping sound when they lit an acetylene torch, followed by a spray of sparks as the blue flame attacked the rusted bars.

"I won't guarantee that opening behind the grating is an escape shaft," said Jerry Lubin. "But I'd have to say it's a safe bet.

Lubin had arrived a few hours earlier from Washington and was accompanied by Admiral Sandecker. A mining consultant with the Federal Resources Agency, Lubin was a small, humorous man with a pawnbroker nose and bloodhound eyes.

Pitt turned and looked at him. "We found it where you said it'd be."

"An educated guess," said Lubin. "If I had been mine superintendent, that's where I would have put it."

"Somebody went to a lot of work to keep people out," said Sandecker.