Valhalla Rising (Dirk Pitt 16)

The face and body on the other side were not what they were ten years ago. The hair had yet to show any indications of baldness. It was still thick, black and wavy, but gray was beginning to creep in along the temples. The piercing green eyes beneath dense eyebrows had yet to dim. They were eyes passed on by his mother, and they had a hypnotic quality about them that seemed to reach into the very soul of people who came into contact with him. Women were especially absorbed by his eyes. They sensed an aura about them, something that revealed him as a down-to-earth man who could be trusted.

The face, though, was beginning to show the unstoppable result of aging. Deepening mirth lines spread from the edges of his eyes. The skin did not have the elasticity of his younger years and was slowly achieving a weathered look to it. The craggy features around the cheeks and forehead seemed more pronounced. The nose still seemed reasonably straight and intact, considering that it had been broken on three different occasions. He was not Errol Flynn-hand-some, but he still possessed a presence that made people turn and stare in his direction when he entered a room.

Yes, he thought, his facial features came from his mother's side of the family, while his humorous oudook on life and his tall, lean body had definitely been passed down by his father and his father's ancestors.

He lightly ran the fingers of one hand over the several scars spread across his body, reminders of his many adventures during his two decades of service with the National Underwater and Marine Agency. Though he had attended the Air Force Academy and still held a commission as a major in the Air Force, he had jumped at the chance to serve under Admiral James Sandecker and the newly formed oceanographic and marine science agency. Never married, he had come close during a long-running relationship with Congresswoman Loren Smith, but their lives were too complicated. His job at NUMA and hers in Congress were just too demanding for marriage.

Two of his former loves had died under tragic circumstances, Summer Moran in a devastating underwater earthquake off Hawaii, and Maeve Fletcher, shot by her sister off the coast of Tasmania.

It was Summer who never ceased to haunt his dreams. He alwavs saw her swimming into the depths to find her father who was trapped in an underwater cavern, her lovely body and flowing red hair vanishing into the green water of the Pacific. When he'd reached the surface for air and found her gone, he'd tried to dive back, but the men in the boat that rescued him knew it was hopeless and physically restrained him from returning.

Since that time, he had lived only for his work on and under the water. The sea became his mistress. Except for his home in an old aircraft hangar on one corner of Washington's Ronald Reagan Airport, which contained his car and airplane collection, he was always happiest when on a research ship sailing the oceans of the world.

He sighed, put on a terry-cloth robe and lay down on his bed. He was about to drift off into a deserved sleep when he suddenly thought of something and sat up. The girl with her father's leather case jumped strangely into his mind. The more he thought about it, the less it made sense that she left in one of the containership's boats without his seeing her. Then it became obvious.

She hadn't left. She was still hiding somewhere on board the Deep Encounter.

Ignoring the allure of sleep, he came off the bed and quickly dressed. Five minutes later, he began his search at the stern end of the platform deck, peering into every nook and cranny in the generator room, winch room, propulsion motor room and scientific equipment storeroom. It was a slow process because there were so many places amid the stores and equipment where someone could hide.

He checked out the repair parts storeroom and almost missed it, that little something seemingly out of place. He noticed several gallon cans of various lubricating oils, all neatly stacked on a workbench. Nothing that at first glance looked out of the ordinary. But he knew they should have been stored in a wooden storage crate. He walked whisper-quiet over to the crate and eased open the lid.

Kelly Egan was sleeping an exhausted sleep so sound she did not perceive Pitt's presence. The leather case was sitting propped against the side of the crate, and one of her arms hung over it. He smiled, removed a clipboard from a bulkhead hanger, tore off a page from the pad and wrote a note.

Dear Lady,

When you wake, please come to my cabin on deck level two, number eight.

Dirk Pitt.

As an afterthought to entice her, he added, Food and drink will be waiting.

He laid the note gently on her chest, softly closed the lid to the crate and quietly stepped from the parts room.

At slightly past seven in the evening, Kelly rapped lightly on Pitt's cabin door. He opened and found her, eyes lowered sheepishly, standing in the passageway, still clutching the handle of the leather case. He took her by the hand and led her inside. "You must be starved," he said, smiling to show he wasn't angry or annoyed.

"Are you Dirk Pitt?"

"Yes, and you're . . . ?"

"Kelly Egan. I'm so sorry to have caused you-"

"No trouble at all," he interrupted. He motioned to a desk with a tray of sandwiches and a pitcher of milk. "Not exactly a gourmet dinner, but about the best the cook could do with what's left of our food supply." He held up a woman's blouse and shorts. "One of our scientists guessed at your size and kindly loaned some clothes. Eat and then take a shower. I'll come back in half an hour. Then we'll talk."

When Pitt returned, Kelly had showered and already finished off a pile of ham-and-cheese sandwiches. The pitcher of milk was all but drained, too. He sat down in a chair opposite her. "Feeling like you belong to the human race again?"

She smiled and nodded, looking like a schoolgirl who had been caught at mischief. "You must be wondering why I didn't leave the ship?"

"The thought crossed my mind."

> "I was afraid."

"Of what? The man who attacked you and your father? I'm happy to report that he joined the other victims of the ship who drowned."

"There was another one," she said hesitantly. "A ship's officer. He seemed to be an accomplice of the red-haired man who tried to kill me. Together, they attempted to steal my father's case, and I believe they meant to murder him. But something went wrong during the struggle, and all they succeeded in doing was push him over the railing into the water-"

"Taking the case with him," Pitt said, finishing the sentence.

"Yes." Tears came to Kelly's eyes as she relived her father's death. Pitt reached in a pocket and handed her a handkerchief. After wiping the tears, she stared at the cloth. "I didn't think men carried these anymore. I thought everyone used tissue."