Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

"The most pathetic trick in the world," Loren spat contemptuously.

"You're not even original."

He took a step forward, his hand lashing out and slapping her on the face. She staggered back against the steel bulkhead and sagged to her knees staring up at him, her eyes blazing with fear and loathing.

He grasped her by the hair and tilted her head back. The conversational politeness disappeared from his voice. "I always wondered what it would be like to screw a high-ranking capitalist bitch."

Loren's answer was to swiftly reach out and grab him in the groin, squeezing with all her might.

Suvorov gasped in agony and swung his fist, connecting with her left cheekbone just below the eye. Loren fell sideways into the corner while Suvorov clutched himself and paced the tiny cubicle like a mad animal until the stabbing ache subsided. Then he brutally picked her up and threw her onto the bunk.

He leaned over her and ripped off her underclothes. "You rotten bitch!" he snarled. "I'm going to make you wish for a quick death."

Tears of agony coursed from Loren's eyes as she teetered on the verge of unconsciousness. Vaguely, through the mist of pain, she could see Suvorov slowly take off his belt and wrap it around his hand, leaving the buckle free and swinging. She tried to tense her body for the coming blow as his arm lifted upward, but she was too weak.

Suddenly Suvorov seemed to grow a third arm. It snaked over his right shoulder and then locked around his neck. The belt dropped to the deck and his body stiffened.

Shock swept across Suvorov's face, the shock of disbelief, then horror at the full realization of what was happening, and the torment as his windpipe was slowly and mercilessly crushed and his breathing choked off. He struggled against the relentless pressure, throwing himself around the cell, but the arm remained. In a sudden flash of certainty, he knew he would never live to feel the pressure ease. The terror and the lack of oxygen contorted his face and turned it reddish-blue. His starving lungs struggled for air and his arms flailed in frantic madness.

Loren tried to raise her hands over her face to shut out the horrible sight, but they refused to respond. She could only sit frozen and watch in morbid fascination as the life seeped out of Suvorov; watch his violent thrashings subside until finally the eyes bulged from their sockets and he went limp. He hung there several seconds, supported by the ghostly arm until it pulled away from his neck and he fell on the deck in a heap.

Another figure loomed in Suvorov's place, standing inside the cell's doorway, and Loren found herself staring into a friendly face with deep green eyes and a faint crooked grin.

"Just between you and me," said Pitt, "I've never believed that rot about getting there is half the fun."

NOON, A BRILLIANT AZuiRE SKY with small cottonball clouds nudged by a gentle westerly breeze, found the Leonin Andreyev passing within eighteen miles of Cabo Maisi, the easternmost tip of Cuba.

Many of the passengers sunbathing around the swimming pools took no notice of the palm-lined coastline on the horizon. To them it was just another one of the hundred islands they had passed since leaving Florida.

On the bridge, Captain Pokofsky stood with binoculars to his eyes.

He was observing a small powerboat that was circling from the land on his starboard quarter. She was old, her bow nearly straight up and down, and her hull was painted black. The topsides were varnished mahogany, and the name Pilar was lettered in gold across her transom.

She looked an immaculately kept museum piece. On the ensign staff at her stern she flew the American stars and stripes in the inverted position of distress.

Pokofsky walked over to the automated ship's control console and pressed the "slow speed" switch. Almost immediately he could feel the engines reduce revolutions. Then, waiting a few minutes until the ship had slowed to a crawl, he leaned over and pressed the lever for "all stop."

He was about to walk out on the bridge wing when his first officer came hurrying up the companionway from the deck below.

"Captain," he said, catching his breath. "I've just come from the brig area. The prisoners are gone."

Pokofsky straightened. "Gone? You mean escaped?"

"Yes, sir. I was on a routine inspection when I found the two security guards unconscious and locked up in one of the cells. The KGB agent is dead."

"Paul Suvorov was killed?"

The first officer nodded. "From all appearances, he was strangled."

"Why didn't you call me immediately over the ship's phone?"

"I thought it best to tell you in person."

"You're right, of course," Pokofsky admitted. "This couldn't have come at a worse time. Our Cuban security people are arriving to transport the prisoners to shore."

"If you can stall them, I'm confident a search effort will quickly turn up the Americans."

Pokofsky stared through the doorway at the closing boat. "They'll wait," he said confidently. "Our captives are too important to leave onboard."