Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

He gave her an uncertain look. "I believe you know."

"Why don't you'refresh my memory."

He paused to light a cigarette, carelessly tossing the match in the toilet. "The other evening when the helicopter arrived, Captain Pokofsky's first officer observed you standing very close to the landing area."

"So were several other passengers," Loren snapped icily.

:'Yes, but they were too far away to see a familiar face."

'And you think I wasn't."

"Why can't you be reasonable, Congresswoman. Surely you can't deny you recognized your own colleagues."

'I don't know what you mean."

,: Congressman Alan Moran and Senator Marcus Larimer," he said, closely watching her reaction.

Loren's eyes winened and suddenly she began to shiver in spite of the stifling heat. For the first time since she was made a prisoner, indignation was replaced by despair.

"Moran and Larimer, they're both here too?"

He nodded. "In the next cell."

"This must be an insane joke," she said, stunned.

"No joke,"

" Suvorov said, smiling. "They are guests of the KGB, same as you.

Loren shook her head, unbelieving. Life didn't happen this way, she told herself, except in nightmares. She felt reality drifting slowly from her grasp.

" I have diplomatic immunity," she said, "I demand to be released."

"You carry no influence, not here on board the Leonin Andreyev," said Suvorov in a cold, disinterested voice.

"When my government hears of this-"

" They won't," he interrupted.

"When the ship leaves Jamaica on its return voyage to Miami, Captain Pokofsky will announce with deep regret and sympathy that Congresswoman Loren Smith was lost overboard and presumed drowned."

A numbing hopelessness seized Loren. "What will happen to Moran and Larimer?"

"I'm taking them to Russia."

"But you're going to kill me," she said, more as a statement than a question.

"They represent senior members of your government. Their knowledge will prove quite useful once they're persuaded to provide it.

You, I'm sorry to say, are not worth the risk."

Loren almost said, As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I know as much as they do, but s

he recognized the trap in time and remained silent.

Suvorov's eyes narrowed. He reached over and tore the dress from in front of her and casually tossed it outside the doorway.

"Very nice," he said. "Perhaps if we were to negotiate, I might find a reason to take you with me to Moscow."