Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

"And his staff?"

"None of them have been observed engaging in espionage activities either."

Emmett looked thoughtful for several moments. Ordinarily he might have brushed the report aside or at most ordered a routine follow-up.

But he had a nagging doubt. The disappearance of the President and Lugovoy on the same night could be a mere coincinence. "I'd like your opinion, Don," he said at last.

"Hard to second-guess this one," Miller replied. "They may all show up at the United Nations on Monday as though nothing had happened.

On the other hand, I'd have to suggest that the squeaky clean image Lugovoy and his staff have projected may be a screen."

"For what purpose?"

Miller shrugged. "I haven't a clue."

Emmett closed the file. "Have the New York bureau stay on this.

I want priority-one updates whenever they're available."

"The more I think about it," Miller said, "the more it intrigues me."

"How so?"

"What vital secrets could a bunch of Soviet psychologists want to steal?"

SUCCESSFUL SHIPPING LINE MAGNATEs travel through the glittering waters of the international jet set in grand fashion. From exotic yachts to private airliners, from magnificent villas to resplendent hotel suites, they roam the world in an unending pursuit of power and wealth.

Min Koryo Bougainville cared nothing for a freewheeling lifestyle.

She spent her waking hours in her office and her nights in small but elegant quarters on the floor above. She was frugal in most matters, her only weakness being a fondness for Chinese antiques.

When she was twelve, her father sold her to a Frenchman who operated a small shipping line consisting of three tramp steamers that plied the coastal ports between Pusan and Hong Kong. The line prospered and Min Koryo bore Ren6 Bougainville three sons.

Then the war came and the Japanese overran China and Korea. Rene' was killed in a bombing rain and the three sons were lost somewhere in the South Pacific, after being forced into the Imperial Japanese Army. Only Min Koryo and one grandson, Lee Tong, survived.

After japan surrendered, she raised and salvaged one of her husband's ships which had been sunk in Pusan harbor. Slowly she built up the Bougainville fleet, buying old surplus cargo ships, never paying more than their scrap value. Profits were few and far between, but she hung on until Lee Tong finished his master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of business and began running the day-to-day operation. Then, almost magically, the Bougainville Maritime Lines grew into one of the world's largest fleet of ships.

When their armada totaled 138 cargo ships and tankers, Lee Tong moved the principal offices to New York. In a ritual going back thirty years, he sat dutifully near her bedside in the evening discussing the current dealings of their farflung financial empire.

Lee Tong wore the misleading look of a jolly Oriental peasant.

His round brown face split in a perpetual smile that seemed chiseled in ivory. If the justice Department and half the federal lawenforcement agencies had wanted to close the book on a backlog of unsolved maritime crimes, they would have hung him from the nearest streetlight, but, oddly, none had a file on him. He skirted in the shadow of his grandmother; he was not even listed as a director or an employee of Bougainville Maritime. Yet it was he, the anonymous member of the family, who handled the dirty-tricks department and built the base of the company.

Too systematic to place his faith in hired hands, he preferred to direct the highly profitable illicit operations from the front rank.

His act often ran on blood. Lee Tong was not above murder to achieve a profit. He was equally at home during a business luncheon at the "21" Club or at a waterfront throat cuttingHe sat a respectful distance from Min Koryo's bedside, a long silver cigarette holder planted between his uneven teeth. She disliked his smoking habit, but he clung to it, not so much as a pleasure but as a small measure of independence.

"By tomorrow the FBI will know how the President disappeared," said Min Koryo.

"I doubt it," Lee Tong said confinently. "The chemical analysis people are good, but not that good. I say closer to three days. And then a week to find the ship."

"Enough time so no loose threads can be traced to us?"

"Enough time, aunumi," said Lee Tong, andressing her in the Korean term for mother. "Rest assured, all threads lead to the grave."

Min Koryo nodded. The inference was crystal clear: The handpicked team of seven men who had ained Lee Tong in the abduetion had been murdered by his own hand.

"Still no news from Washington?" she asked.