Arctic Drift (Dirk Pitt 20)

“Thanks for giving me the courage to go forward,” Lisa replied. “Good night, Dirk,” she said, waving at Pitt.

“Don’t forget. I’ll see you in the morning with the ocean carbon report.”

After Loren climbed back into the car, Pitt slid the gearshift into first and sped down the street.

“Georgetown or the hangar?” he asked Loren.

She snuggled close to him. “The hangar tonight.”

Pitt smiled as he steered the Auburn toward Reagan National Airport. Though married, they still kept separate residences. Loren maintained a fashionable town house in Georgetown but spent most of her time at Pitt’s eclectic home.

Reaching the grounds of the airport, he drove down a dusty side road toward a dark, vacant section of the field. Passing through an electric gate, he pulled up in front of a dimly lit hangar that looked as if it had been collecting dust for several decades. Pitt pressed the security code on a wireless transmitter and watched as a side door to the hangar slid open. A bank of overhead lights popped on, revealing a glistening interior that resembled a transportation museum. Dozens of brightly polished antique cars were neatly aligned in the center of the building. Along one wall, a majestic Pullman railroad car sat parked on a set of steel tracks embedded in the floor. A rusty bathtub with an ancient outboard motor bolted to the side and a weathered and dilapidated semi-inflatable boat sat incongruously nearby. As Pitt pulled into the hangar, the Auburn’s headlights flashed on a pair of aircraft parked at the back of the building. One was an old Ford Tri-Motor and the other a sleek World War II Messerschmitt ME-162 jet. The planes, like many of the cars in the collection, were relics of past adventures. Even the bathtub and raft told a tale of peril and lost love that Pitt retained as sentimental reminders of life’s frailty.

Pitt parked the Auburn next to a 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost that was undergoing restoration and turned off the motor. As the garage door closed behind them, Loren turned to Pitt and asked, “What would my constituents think if they knew I was living in an abandoned aircraft hangar?”

“They’d probably feel pity for you and increase their campaign donations,” Pitt replied with a laugh.

He took her hand and led her up a spiral staircase to a loft apartment in one corner of the building. Loren had exerted her marriage rights and coerced Pitt to remodel the kitchen and add an extra room to the apartment, which she used as an exercise area and office. But she knew better than to touch the brass portholes, ship paintings, and other nautical artifacts that gave the residence a decidedly masculine tone.

“Do you really think Lisa’s discovery will be able to reverse global warming?” Loren asked, pouring two glasses of pinot noir from a bottle labeled Sea Smoke Botella.

“Given enough resources, there seems no reason to think that it can’t happen. Of course, going from the lab to real world production is always more problematic than people think. But if a working design already exists, then the hard part is done.”

Loren walked across the room and handed Pitt a glass. “Once the bombshell hits, it’s going to get pretty hectic,” she said, already dreading the demands on her time.

Pitt hooked an arm around her waist and drew her tight to him. “That’s all right,” he smiled with a yearning grin. “We’ve still got tonight before the wolves start howling.”

14

AFTER DROPPING LOREN AT THE AIRPORT METRO-RAIL station for a subway ride to the Hill, Pitt drove to the NUMA headquarters building, a tall glass structure that hugged the bank of the Potomac River. Collecting a copy of the research study on ocean carbon absorption, he returned to the Auburn and drove into D.C., turning northwest up Massachusetts Avenue. It was a beautiful spring day in the capital city. The oppressive heat and humidity of summer, when all were reminded that the city was built on a swamp, was still weeks away. The warm morning still felt comfortable driving in a convertible. Though he knew he should have left it safely tucked away in his hangar, Pitt couldn’t resist driving the topless Auburn one more time. The old car was remarkably nimble, and most of the surrounding traffic gave him plenty of leeway as they gawked at the sleek lines of the antique.

Pitt was every bit the anachronism he appeared to the passersby. His love of old planes and cars ran deep, as if he had grown up with the aged machines in another lifetime. The attraction nearly matched the draw of the sea and the mysteries that came with exploring the deep. A gnawing sense of restlessness swirled within him, always fueling the wanderlust. Perhaps it was his sense of history that set him apart, allowing him to solve the problems of the modern world by finding answers in the past.

Pitt located the GWU Environmental Research and Technology Lab on a quiet side street off Rock Creek Park, not far from the Lebanese embassy. He happened upon a parking spot in front of the three-story brick building and walked to the entrance with the ocean study tucked under his arm. The lobby guard signed him in with a visitor’s badge, then gave him directions to Lisa’s office on the second floor.

Pitt took the elevator, waiting first for a janitor in a gray jumpsuit to push a trash cart out of the lift. A broad-shouldered man with dark eyes, the janitor gave Pitt a penetrating gaze before smiling good-naturedly as he passed by. Pitt pushed the button for the second floor and stood patiently as the cables pulled the elevator compartment skyward. He heard a muffled ding as the elevator approached the second floor, but before the doors slid open a massive concussion slammed him to the floor.

The detonation was centered over a hundred feet away, yet it shook the entire building like an earthquake. Pitt felt the elevator rattle and sway before the power failed and the compartment turned black. Rubbing a knot on the back of his head, he gingerly pulled himself to his feet and groped for the control panel. None of the buttons triggered a response. Sliding his hands along the door, he pressed his fingertips into the center seam and wedged open the inner doors. A few inches beyond, the outer doors to the second story rose a foot above the floor of the elevator. Pitt reached over and forced open the outer doors and climbed up onto the second-floor landing, stepping into a scene of chaos.

An emergency alarm blared with a deafening din, drowning out numerous shouting voices. A thick cloud of dust hung in the air, choking the breath for several minutes. Through the smoky haze, Pitt saw a crowd of people fighting their way down a nearby stairwell. The damage appeared most severe along a main corridor that stretched in front of him. The explosion had not been powerful enough to structurally damage the building but had blown out scores of windows and several interior walls. Looking past the immediate congestion, Pitt grimly realized that Lisa’s lab was near the heart of the blast.

He made his way down the hallway, giving way to a group of coughing scientists caked in dust. The ground crunched underfoot as he passed the shattered remains of a hallway window. A pale-looking woman staggered out of an office with a bleeding hand, and Pitt stopped and helped her wrap a scarf around the wound.

“Which one is Lisa

Lane’s office?” he asked.

The woman pointed toward a gaping hole on the left side of the corridor, then shuffled off to the stairwell.

Pitt approached the jagged hole where a doorway had stood and stepped into the bay. A thick cloud of white smoke still hung in the air, slowly drifting out the shattered remains of a picture window that faced the street. Through the vacant window, he could hear the sirens of approaching fire rescue vehicles.

The lab itself was a jumbled mass of smoldering electronics and debris. Pitt noted an old Bunsen burner embedded into a side wall from the force of the blast. The smoking remains and punctured walls confirmed what he had feared. Lisa’s lab had indeed been the epicenter of the explosion. The walls still stood and the furnishings had not been obliterated, so it was clearly not a completely debilitating blast. Pitt guessed there would be no fatalities in the rest of the building. But any occupants of the lab were probably not so lucky.

Pitt quickly scoured the room, calling out Lisa’s name as he picked through the debris. He nearly missed her, just catching sight of a dust-covered shoe protruding beneath a fallen cabinet door. He quickly pulled the cabinet aside to reveal Lisa lying in a crumpled heap. Her lower left leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, and her blouse was soaked in blood. But her listless eyes turned and gazed up at Pitt, then blinked in acknowledgment.

“Didn’t they teach you to stay away from chemical experiments that go boom?” Pitt said with a forced smile.

He ran his hand along her blood-wet shoulder until finding a large sliver of glass jutting from her blouse. It appeared loose, so he yanked it out with a quick tug, then applied pressure with the palm of his hand to the stem the bleeding. Lisa grimaced briefly, then passed out.