Trojan Odyssey (Dirk Pitt 17)

She stood there, massaging her shoulder. "I'm so sorry. It was my fault."

"Are you hurt?" Dirk asked solicitously.

"Now I know what it feels like to run into a tree." Then she looked up at him and smiled openly. "I'm Simone Raizet. Perhaps I'll see you around town."

"Perhaps," Pitt replied, without offering his name.

The woman nodded at Summer. "You have a handsome and charming man."

"He can be on occasion," Summer said with a trace of sarcasm.

The woman then turned and walked into the terminal.

"What do you make of that?" said Pitt, bemused.

"You can't say she wasn't brazen," muttered Summer.

"Most strange," said Moreau. "She gives the impression she lives here. I was born on this island, and I've never laid eyes on her before."

Summer looked vaguely concerned. "If you ask me, the collision was preplanned."

"I agree," said Dirk. "She was after something. I don't know what. But our encounter didn't look accidental."

Moreau led them across the street to the parking lot and stopped at a BMW 525 sedan. He pushed the security lock on his key ring and opened the trunk. Dirk deposited the luggage and they settled into the seats. Moreau pulled out onto the road leading to Pointe-a-Pitre.

"I've reserved a small suite with two rooms for you at the Canella Beach Hotel, one of our most popular hotels, and one where a young couple on a budget might stay. Admiral Sandecker's instructions stated that you were to keep a low profile during your search for treasure."

"Historical treasure," Summer corrected him.

"He's right," said Dirk. "If word leaked that NUMA was on a treasure hunt, we'd be mobbed."

"And thrown off the islands," added Moreau. "Our government has strict laws protecting our underwater heritage."

"If we're successful," said Summer, "your people will inherit an epoch-making discovery."

"All the more reason to keep your expedition secret."

"Are you an old friend of the admiral?"

"I met James many years ago when I was the Guadeloupe consul in New York. Since I've retired, he hires me on occasion for NUMA business in and around this part of the Caribbean."

Moreau drove through the lush green hills down to the harbor and around the city along the southeast shore of Grande-Terre, until he reached the outskirts of the town of Gosier. Then he took a small dirt road that wound around back to the main thoroughfare.

Summer gazed through her window and admired the houses that sat amid lush, beautifully maintained gardens. "Giving us a tour of the country?"

"A taxicab has been hanging on us rather closely since we left the airport," said Moreau. "I wanted to see if he was following us."

Dirk turned in his seat and peered through the rear window. "The green Ford?"

"The same."

Moreau left the residential section and skirted around a steady stream of buses, tourists on motor scooters and the city's fleet of taxis. The driver of the green Ford taxi struggled to keep up, but was hindered by the slow-moving traffic. Moreau expertly threaded his way around two buses that blocked both sides of the road. He made a sharp right turn onto a narrow street that ran between rows of homes whose quaint architectural style was French Colonial. He made another left-hand turn and then another at the next block until he was on the main road again. The taxi swung over a path beside the road around the buses, gained the lost distance and stuck to Moreau's rear bumper like glue.

"It's interested in us, all right," said Dirk.

"Let us see if I can lose him," said Moreau.

He waited until there was a break in the traffic. Then, instead of turning, he shot straight ahead and darted through the traffic onto the street across the main road. The taxi driver was impeded by the stream of motor scooters, cars and buses a good thirty seconds before he could break through and take up the chase.