Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

At last Thayer's voice came over the bridge with a strange icy calm.

"I regret to report that Ensign Murphy and Lieutenant Lawrence are dead. I can find no life signs. Whatever the cause it will strike me before I can escape. You must quarantine this boat. Do you understand, Amos?"

Dover found it impossible to grasp that he was suddenly about to lose his old friend. "Do not understand, but will comply."

"Good. I'll describe the symptoms as they come. Beginning to feel light-headed already. Pulse increasing to one fifty. May have contracted the cause by skin absorption. Pulse one seventy."

Thayer paused. His next words came haltingly.

"Growing nausea. Legs. Can no longer. . . Support. Intense burning sensation..... In sinus region. Internal organs feel like they're exploding."

As one, everybody on the bridge of the Catawba leaned closer to the speaker, unable to comprehend that a man they all knew and respected was dying a short distance away.

"Pulse. Over two hundred. Pain. . . excruciating.

Blackness closing vision." There was an audible moan. "Tell...

Tell my wife the speaker went silent.

You could smell the shock; see it in the widened eyes of the crew standing in stricken horror.

Dover stared numbly at the tomb named the Arnie Marie, his hands clenched in helplessness and despair.

"What's happening?" He murmured tonelessly. "What in God's name is killing everyone?"

"I SAY HANG THE BASTARD,

"Oscar, mind your language in front of the girls."

"They've heard worse. It's insane. The scum murders four times and some cretin of a judge throws the case out of court because the defendant was too stoned on drugs to understand his rights.

God, can you believe it?"

Carolyn Lucas poured her husband's first cup of coffee for the day and whisked their two young daughters off to the school bus stop. He gestured menacingly at the TV as if it were the fault of the anchorman announcing the news that the killer roamed free.

Oscar Lucas had a way of talking with his hands that bore little resemblance to sign language for the deaf. He sat stoop-shouldered at the breakfast table, a position that camouflaged his lanky six-foot frame. His head was as bald as an egg except for a few graying strands around the temples, and his bushy brows hovered over a pair of oak-brown eyes. Not one to join the Washington, D.C blue pinstripe brigade, he was dressed in slacks and sport coat.

In his early forties, Lucas might have passed for a dentist or bookkeeper instead of the special agent in charge of the Presidential Protection Division of the Secret Service. During his twenty years as an agent he had fooled many people with his nice neighbor-next-door appearance, from the Presidents whose lives he guarded to the potential assassins he'd stonewalled before they had an opportunity to act. On the job he came off aggressive and solemn, yet at home he was usually full of mischief and humor except, of course, when he was influenced by the eight A.m. news.

Lucas took a final sip of coffee and rose from the table. He held open his coat-he was left-handed-and adjusted the high-rime hip holster holding a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum Model 19 revolver with a two-inch barrel. The Service provided the standard issue gun when he had finished training and started out as a rookie agent in the Denver field office investigating counterfeiters and forgers. He had drawn it only twice in the line of duty, but had yet to pull the trigger outside a firing range.

Carolyn was unloading the dishwasher when he came up behind her, pulled away a cascade of blond hair and pecked her on the neck. "I'm off."

"Don't forget tonight is the pool party across the street at the Harding’s'."

"I should be home in time. The boss isn't scheduled to leave the White House today."

She looked up at him and smiled. "You see that he doesn't."

"I'll inform the President first thing that my wife frowns on me working late."

She laughed and leaned her head briefly on his shou

lder. "Six o'clock."

"You win," he said in mock weariness and stepped out the back door.

Lucas backed his leased government car, a plush Buick sedan, into the street and headed downtown. Before reaching the end of the block he called the Secret Service central command office over his car radio.