Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

He's the only crewman unaccounted for."

"An impostor," said Brogan. "The real steward was probably murdered and his corpse hidden."

"What about the others?" queried Emmett.

"The Asians?"

"Were they poisoned too?"

"Yes, but in a different manner. They were all shot."

"Shot, poisoned, which is it?"

"They were killed by fragmenting darts loaded with a highly lethal venom that comes from the dorsal spines of the stonefish."

"No amateurs, these guys," commented Emmett.

Thornburg nodded in agreement. "The method was very professional, especially the means of penetration. I removed a similar dart two years ago from a Soviet agent brought in by Mr. Brogan's people. As I recall, the poison was injected by a bio-inoculator."

"I'm not familiar with it," said Lucas.

"An electrically operated handgun," said Brogan, giving Thornburg an icy stare. "Totally silent, used on occasion by our resident agents."

"A little loose with your arsenal, aren't you, Martin?" Mercier goaded him good-naturedly.

"The unit in question was probably stolen from the manufacturer," Brogan said defensively.

"Has an id been made on any of the Asian bodies?" Lucas asked.

"They have no records in FBI files," admitted Emmett.

"Nor with the CIA and Interpol," Brogan anded. "None of the intelligence services of friendly Asian countries have anything on them either."

Mercier stared inly at the corpse moving out from the interior of the spatial analyzer probe. "It appears, gentlemen, that every time we open a door we walk into an empty room."

"WHAT KIND OF MONSTERs are we dealing with?" Douglas Oates growled after listening to General Metcalf's report on the autopsies.

His face wore a chalky pallor and his voice was cold with fury.

"Twenty-one murders. And for what purpose? Where is the motive?

Is the President dead or alive? If this is a grand extortion scheme, why haven't we received a ransom demand?"

Metcalf, Dan Fawcett and Secretary of Defense Jesse Simmons sat in silence in front of Oates's desk.

"We can't sit on this thing much longer," Oates continued. "Any minute now the news media will become suspicious and stampede into an investigation. Already they're grousing because no presidential interviews have been granted. Press Secretary Thompson has run out of excuses."

"Why not have the President face the press?" Fawcett suggested.

Oates looked dubious. "That actor-what's his name-Sutton?

He would never get away with it."

"Not up close on a podium under a battery of lights, but in a setting under shadows at a distance of a hundred feet . . . Well, it might work."

"You got something in mind?" Oates asked.

"We stage a photo opportunity to enhance the President's image.