Shock Wave (Dirk Pitt 13)

"Buried?"

"Knowing Dorsett, he wouldn't bat an eye when he gave the order to his security flunkies."

"Have you ever met the man?" asked Pitt.

"Once was enough. His daughter, The Emasculator, is as bad as he is."

"Boudicca." Pitt smiled thinly. "She's called The Emasculator?"

"Strong as an ox, that one," said the engineer. "I've seen her lift a good-sized man off the ground with one arm."

Before Pitt could ask any more questions, the elevator reached the surface level and stopped in the main lift building. The engineer stepped outside, glancing at a Ford van that drove past. Pitt followed him around the corner of the mess hall and behind the garbage containers.

The engineer nodded at Pitt's jumpsuit. "Your gear belongs to a geologist who's down with the flu. I'll have to return it before he discovers it missing and wonders why."

"Great," Pitt muttered. "I probably contacted his flu germs from the respirator."

"Your Indian friends have returned to their boats." The engineer gestured at the food-storage loading dock. The tractor and trailers were gone. "The van that just passed by the elevator building is a personnel shuttle. It should return in a couple of minutes. Hail the driver and tell him to take you through the tunnel."

Pitt stared at the old engineer dubiously. "You don't think he'll question why I didn't leave with the other Haida?"

The old engineer took a notebook and a pencil from a pocket of his jumpsuit and scribbled a few words. He tore off the sheet of paper, folded it and passed it to Pitt. "Give him this. It will guarantee your safe passage. I have to return to work before Dapper John's muscle boys begin to ask questions."

Pitt shook his hand. "I'm grateful for your help. You took a terrible risk by revealing Dorsett Consolidated secrets to a perfect stranger."

"If I can prevent future deaths of innocent people, any risk on my part will have been well worth it."

"Good luck," said Pitt.

"The same to you." The engineer began to walk away, thought of something and turned back. "One more thing, out of curiosity. I saw the Dorsett gunship take off after a floatplane the other day. It never returned."

"I know," said Pitt. "It ran into a hill and burned."

"You know?"

"I was on the floatplane."

The engineer looked at him queerly. "And Malcolm Stokes?"

Pitt quickly realized that this was the undercover man Stokes had mentioned. "A metal splinter in one lung. But he'll live to enjoy his pension."

"I'm glad. Malcolm is a good man. He has a fine family."

"A wife and five children," said Pitt. "He told me after we crashed."

"Then you got clear only to jump back in the fire."

"Not very bright of me, was it?"

The engineer smiled. "No, I guess it wasn't." Then he turned and headed back into the elevator building, where he disappeared from Pitt's view.

Five minutes later, the van appeared and Pitt waved it to a stop. The driver, in the uniform of a security guard, stared at Pitt suspiciously. "Where did you come from?" he asked.

Pitt handed him the folded note and shrugged wordlessly.

The driver read the note, wadded it up, tossed it on the floor and nodded. "Okay, take a seat. I'll run you as far as the search house at the other end of the tunnel."

/> As the driver closed the door and shifted the van into drive, Pitt took a seat behind him and casually leaned down and picked up the crumpled note. It read: