Pitt smiled and gave a slight bow, as if in relaxed satisfaction.
Suddenly, before anybody realized what he was doing, he snatched up the knife and slashed the blade across Specter's stomach, slicing through the white suit up to the hilt.
Shouts from the men and screams from the women erupted and reverberated throughout the room. The security guard lunged toward Pitt, who stood ready and stepped aside, tripping the guard and sending him spilling onto the floor. Then he plunged the knife blade into the table in front of Specter and stood back, his expression one of extreme gratification.
Loren, who had leaped to her feet, shouting at Pitt, abruptly went silent. She was one of the first to see that Specter was not bleeding.
Blood and intestines should have flooded onto the surface of the table, but the white suit was unstained with crimson. Soon the hundred or more people who had come to their feet in shock began to notice the same phenomenon.
His face pale, Congressman Dunn stared down at Specter, pounding his gavel like a madman. "What is going on here?" he shouted.
No one interfered as Pitt stepped around the table, pulled off Specter's sunglasses and casually flipped them onto the floor. Then he reached up and pulled off Specter's hat and scarf and threw them on the table.
Everyone in the room gasped at seeing a great mass of red hair fall down around Specter's shoulders.
Pitt approached Congressman Dunn. "Sir, permit me to introduce Ms. Epona Eliade, also known as Specter, the founder of the Odyssey empire."
"Is this true?" said a confused Dunn, coming to his feet. "Is this woman really Specter and not a disguised double?"
"She is the genuine article," Pitt assured him. Then he turned to Epona. "Strange as it sounds, I've missed you," he said, with a voice heavy with sarcasm.
She should have trembled like a mouse filled with fear at the sight of a snake. But she stood tall and did not answer Pitt. She didn't have to. Her eyes flashed, lips tightened, as her face filled with enough hate and contempt to launch a revolution. Then something totally inconceivable happened in the next macabre moment. The look of anger faded from the eyes and tightened lips as abruptly as they appeared. Slowly, very slowly, Epona began removing the knife-slashed white suit until she stood incredibly serene and beautiful in only a white form-fitting silk dress that fell off the shoulders and stopped just below the hips, her red hair cascading past her bare shoulders.
It was a vision that the hearing room and the stunned audience would never witness again.
"You have won, Mr. Pitt," she said, in a soft voice with just a trace of huskiness. "Do you feel triumphant? Do you believe you have accomplished a miracle?"
Pitt shook his head slowly. "Triumphant, no, and certainly no miracle. Gratified, yes. Your outrageous attempt to demoralize the lives of millions of people was despicable. You could have given your great advance in fuel cell technology to the world, and your tunnels under Nicaragua would have provided untold opportunities to reduce the time and cost of shipping cargo through the Panama Canal. Instead, you banded with a foreign nation to gain nothing more than wealth and power."
He could see that she was the mistress of her emotions, and harbored no debate. She smiled a smile that seemed to portend something. No one in that room that day would forget the exotic, compelling creature who exuded a feminine magnetism that was indescribable.
"Pretty words, Mr. Pitt. But meaningless. Except for you, I might have changed the course of world history. That was the goal, the ultimate achievement."
"Few will grieve that you failed," Pitt said with a cold edge in his tone.
Only then did Pitt see the faint look of despair in her captivating eyes. She pulled herself erect and faced the congressional committee.
"Do with me what you wish, but be advised, it will be no small battle to convict me of any crime."
Dunn pointed his gavel at two men seated in the back of the room. "Will the Federal marshals please step forward and take this woman into custody?"
Epona's lawyers immediately leaped to their feet, protesting that it was not in Dunn'
s power as a congressman to arrest anyone. He glared at them.
"This person has committed a crime in committing fraud in front of this committee. She shall be held until such time as the Attorney General's Office has a chance to review her criminal actions and take the proper legal action."
As the marshals took Epona by the arm and began leading her from the hearing room, she stopped in front of Pitt and stared at him with an expression that was sardonic but oddly lacking anger. "My friends across the sea will never allow me to be prosecuted. We will cross paths again, Mr. Pitt. Nothing ends here. The next time we meet, you will fall into my web, make no mistake."
Pitt brushed aside his wrath and gave her a cool and enigmatic smile. "Next time?" He posed it as a question. "I don't think so, Epona. You're not my type."
The lips went taut with anger again. Her skin noticeably paled and her eyes lost their luster, as the marshals hustled her out a side door. Pitt could not help but admire her beauty. Few women could have made a dramatic exit after a fall from heights with such style and grace. Deep down, his stomach twisted with the thought that he would indeed cross paths with her another day.
Loren came down onto the witness floor and unashamedly hugged Pitt. "You crazy fool. You might have been shot."
"Forgive the theatrics, but I figured now was the time and this was the place to expose the witch."
"Why didn't you tell me?"