Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

The neurologist waved casually at the data printer. "It should be there."

"No matter," said Lugovoy. "It can wait till morning." Then he turned and walked to his room.

His curiosity needled, the neurologist picked up the top printout sheet containing the President's interpreted brainwaves and glanced at the wording.

"Green hills of summer,' he muttered to himself as he read. "A city between two rivers with nwny Byzantine-style churches topped by hundreds of cupolas. One called St. Sophia. A river barge filled with sugar beets. The Catacombs of St. Anthony. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was dreaming about the city of Kiev."

He stood beside a pathway on a hill overlooking a wine river, gazing at the ship traffic and holding an artist's brush. On the treecovered slope below him he could see a large stone pedestal beneath a figure draped in robes and holding a tall cross as though it were a staff. An easel with a canvas stood slightly off to his right.

The painting was nearly finished. The landscape before his eyes was perfectly mirrored in the exacting brush strokes, down to the stippled leaves in the trees. The only difference, if one looked close enough, was the stone monument.

Instead of a long flowing heard of some forgotten saint, the head was an exact likeness of Soviet President Georgi Antonov.

Suddenly the scene changed. Now he found himself being dragged out of a small cottage by four men. The cottage walls were carved with Gothic designs and it was painted a garish blue.

The faces of his abductors were indistinct, yet he could smell their unwashed sweat. They were pulling him toward a car. He experienced no fear but rather blind rage and lashed out with his feet.

His assailants began beating him, but the pain felt distant as though the agony belonged to someone else.

in the doorway of the cottage he could see the figure of a young woman. Her blond hair was raised in a knot atop her head and she wore a full blouse and a peasant skirt. Her arms were upraised and she seemed to be pleading, but he could not make out the words.

Then he was thrown on the rear floor of the car and the door slammed shut.

THE PURSER looked AT the two tourists weaving up the boarding ramp in frank amusement. They were an outlandish pair. The female was dressed in a loose-fitting, ankle-length sundress, and to the Russian purser's creative eye, she could have passed for a rainbowed sack of Ukrainian potatoes. He couldn't quite make out her face because it was partially obscured by a wine-brimmed straw hat, tied around the chin by a silk scarf, but he imagined if it was revealed it would break his watch crystal.

The man who appeared to be her husband was drunk. He reeled onto the deck smelling of cheap bourbon, and laughed constantly.

Dressed in a loud flowered shirt and white duck pants, he leered at his ugly wife and whispered gibberish in her ear. He noticed the purser and raised his arm in a comical salute.

"Hi-ho, Captain," he said with a slack grin.

"I am not the captain. My name is Peter Kolodno. I am the purser. How can I help you?"

"I'm Charlie Gruber and this is my wife, Zelda. We bought tickets here in San Salvador."

He handed a packet to the purser, who studied them carefully for a few moments.

"Welcome aboard the Leonin Andreyev," said the purser officially.

"I regret that we do not have our usual hospitality festivities to greet new passengers, but you've joined us rather late in the cruise."

"We were sailing on a windjammer when the dumb helmsman ran us onto a reef," the man called Gruber babbled. "My little woman and I near drowned. Couldn't see going back home to Sioux Falls early. So we're finishing our vacation on your boat.

Besides, my wife turns on to Greeks."

"This is a Russian ship," the purser explained patiently.

"No kidding?"

"Yes, sir, the Leonin Andreyev's home port is Sevastopol."

"You don't say. Where is that?"

"The Black Sea," the purser said, maintaining an air of politeness.

"Sounds polluted."

The purser was at a loss as to how America ever became a superpower with citizens such as these. He checked his passenger list and then nodded. "Your cabin is number thirty-four, on the Gorki deck.