Valhalla Rising (Dirk Pitt 16)

Wednesday thought a moment. "Come to think of it, a farmer reported finding old rusty chain mail back in the nineteen twenties, but I don't know what became of it or whether a scientist ever examined it."

"Thank you again."

They offered their farewells, left Wednesday's office and headed for the parking lot. Dark clouds were massing and it looked as if rain was only minutes away. They reached the car and climbed in just as the first drops began to fall. The mood was somber as Giordino inserted the keys in the ignition and started the engine.

"Dad found the settlement," Kelly said intently. "I know it."

"My problem," said Giordino, "is that I can't make a connection between a settlement and a cave. It looks to me as if no cave, no settlement."

"Though any trace of the settlement was destroyed, I'm betting there was a cave and that it still exists," said Pitt.

"I wish I knew where," Kelly said wistfully. "Josh and I never found it."

"The Indians could have sealed off the entrance," advised Giordino.

Kelly stared out the window dreamily at the trees surrounding the parking lot. "Then we'll never find it."

"I suggest that we make a search from the river below the palisades," said Pitt confidently. "Finding a cavity in the rock under the surface is very possible with the use of side-scan sonar. We can round up a NUMA boat and sensor and be ready to go the day after tomorrow."

Giordino was shifting into gear and pulling out of the college parking area when his cell phone buzzed. "Giordino." A pause and then, "One moment, Admiral. He's right here" He passed the phone to Pitt in the rear seat. "It's Sandecker."

"Yes, Admiral," said Pitt. Then, for the next three minutes, he went mute and listened without replying. Then finally, "Yes, sir. We're on our way." He handed the phone back to Giordino. "He wants us back in Washington as quickly as we can get there."

"A problem?"

"More like an emergency."

"Did he say what it was?" asked Kelly.

"It seems Curtis Merlin Zale and his pals at Cerberus are about to cause a catastrophe even worse than the Emerald Dolphin."

Part Four

DECEPTION

42

AUGUST 8, 2003 WASHINGTON, D.C.

Congresswoman Loren Smith felt as though she'd been tied to a wild horse and dragged across the desert. Though the directors of Cerberus had been subpoenaed to appear before her Congressional Investigative Committee into Illegal Marketing Practices, they had failed to show. Instead, they were represented by an army of their corporate attorneys who laid an impenetrable smoke screen over the entire proceedings.

"Spin-and-stall tactics," she muttered under her breath, as she gaveled the hearings to a close until the following morning. "They don't come any slimier than we've seen here this morning."

She was sitting there in utter anger and frustration when Congressman Leonard Sturgis, a Democrat from North Dakota, walked up and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't be discouraged, Loren."

"I can't say that you were much help today," she said, with a hard edge to her voice. "You agreed with everything they threw at us when you knew perfectly well it was nothing but distortions and lies."

"You can't deny everything they testified about was perfectly legal."

"I want to see Curtis Merlin Zale in front of the committee, along with his board of directors. Not a bunch of shysters throwing mud in the water."

"I'm sure Mr. Zale will appear at the proper time," said Sturgis. "I think you will find him a quite reasonable man."

Loren gave Sturgis a withering look. "Zale crudely interrupted my dinner the other night, and I found him to be utter vermin."

Sturgis frowned, which was atypical for him. His face was rarely without a smile. In Congress he was known as the great pacifier. He had the weathered look of a man who'd spent most of his life on a farm. His brothers still farmed the family homestead in Buffalo, North Dakota, and he was continually reelected because of his unending fight to preserve the farming way of life. His only liability, as Loren saw it, was his coziness with Curtis Merlin Zale.